a poetical penphrasis or descriptive name

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(pl. -ar), f.

1) teaching, doctrine, lesson, esp. of preaching; kenna kenningar, to preach;

2) mark of recognition;

3) a poetical penphrasis or descriptive name.

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f. doctrine, teaching, lesson, esp. of preaching, Fms. i. 148; kenna kenningar, to teach, preach, 625. 24, K. Á. 22, Bs. i. 140, N. T., Vídal.; tíðagörð ok k., passim; á-kenning, q. v.; viðr-k., acknowledgment.

2. a mark of recognition, Grett. 132 A; kenningar-orð, words of admonition, Hkr. iii. 23, Fb. iii. 279; kenningar-maðr = kennimaðr, Rb. 366; kenningar-sveinn, an apprentice, N. G. L. ii. 204.

II. a poetical periphrasis or descriptive name (see kenna A. V. 2), Edda passim, opp. to ókennd heiti ( simple appellatives); a kenning is either simple (kennt), double (tví-kennt), or triple (rekit). The ancient circumlocutions were either drawn from mythology, as to call Thor the son of Earth (Jarðar sunr), and the heaven the skull of Ymir; or from the thing itself (sann-kenning), as to call the breast the mind’s abode: similar phraseology is found in all ancient poetry, but in the old northern poets it was carried farther and was more artificial than in other languages.

COMPDS: kenningarfaðir, kenningarnafn, kenningarson.