keenness

keen | American Dictionary

keen
adjective[ -er/-est only ]
us/kin/

keenadjective[-er/-est only] (STRONGLY FELT)

(esp. of emotions and beliefs) strongly felt:
a keen interest in painting

keenadjective[-er/-est only] (DEVELOPED)

(of an awareness or ability) very developed, or (of the mind) very quick to understand:
a keen eye for detail
a keen sense of smell

keenadjective[-er/-est only] (EAGER)

eager, interested, and enthusiastic:
Theresa isn’t too keen on pets.

keen | Business English

keen
adjective
uk /kiːn/us
if competition between people or businesses is keen, they are using a lot of effort to be more successful than the others:
Some firms are diversifying their businesses in response to keen competition.
UK
if prices are keen, they are lower and offer more value than others:
Superstores may offer keen prices that small-town shops cannot match.
UK
very interested in something or eager to do something:
A keen member of two local investment clubs, he runs portfolios of shares for both himself and his wife.
a keen interest in sthAmong the foundation's donors are corporations with a keen interest in issues before the legislature.
keen on sthLike every banker these days, he is keen on managing other people's wealth.
keen to do sthThe company is keen to expand beyond the UK.

Examples of keen

keen
The tester explains that she wants to know what food the child likes and what he is not too keen on.
I can be perfectly rational in believing that my faculty of vision is keener than my companions.
As a result, although he was keen to reflect the sense of local culture in his school, he was somewhat selective.
His extraordinary ability and strength of character were indicated in abundance from the early years of his youth, together with rare scholarship and keen intellect.
This created consternation even among non-governmental members who were keen for more diversified sources of funding.
In pursuit of this latter goal it was evident that children were keen to resist separation from parents by almost any means.
There was little discussion in any of the focus groups on this topic and none of the participants were keen to discuss it.
These are relatively hard to get hold of, but contain a wealth of fascinating itineraries to keep the keenest geologist busy.
One of the big ideas in the play is power, and we were keen to find a way of investigating this in the choruses.
But the quest for unknown landscapes, and the search for the exotic remained keen.
The middling sorts were keen consumers of publicly performed music as well as avid makers of music in their homes.
In sum, there are indications that with donor backing, civil society is a sector which sections of government are neither keen nor able to ignore.
Despite this volume being primarily written for the specialist the written style and scope also provide ample interest for the keen amateur.
Specifically, the authors make the keen observation that the use of visual aids tends to take the audience's attention away from the presenter.
People were not, therefore, generally very keen to 'trade down' and they were even more opposed to the idea of moving into rented accommodation.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.