kenning

Sight, view; specifically a distant view at sea.

Touching the moſt remarkeable things of the Country and our proceeding from the 17 of Auguſt 1585. till the 18. of Iune 1586. we made Roanoack our habitation. The vtmoſt of our diſcouery Southward was Secotan as we eſteemed 80. leagues from Roanoacke. The paſſage from thence was thought a broad ſound within the maine, being without kenning of land, yet full of flats and ſhoulds that our Pinnaſſe could not paſſe, […]

And becauſe in the beginning of my Trouble, when in the midſt of the Tempeſt, I had a kenning of the Harbour, which I hope now by your Majeſty's Favour I am entring into; I made a tender to your Majeſty of two Works, a Hiſtory of England, and a Digeſt of your Laws: as I have performed a Part of the one; ſo I have herewith ſent your Majeſty, by way of an Epiſtle, a New Offer of the other.

The range or extent of vision, especially at sea; (by extension) a marine measure of approximately twenty miles.

Scylley is a Kenning, that is to ſay about an xx. Miles from the very Weſteſte Point of Cornewaulle.

The obſcure text, of which the light is only to be ſeen by groping our way through "antres vaſt," and at times through "deſarts idle" of earth beneath, is frequently ſo highly elevated in the page, that it is barely entitled to [John] Milton's appellation of darkneſs viſible; and now and then it ſoars even above this, mounting (to uſe an old phraſe,) beyond a kenning.

As little as one can discriminate or recognize; a small portion, a little.

put in a kenning of salt

His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should waste my breath to be defending him!

A chalaza or tread of an egg (a spiral band attaching the yolk of the egg to the eggshell); a cicatricula.

The ſtreine or kenning of the egge.

A metaphorical compound or phrase, used especially in Germanic poetry (Old English or Old Norse) whereby a simple thing is described in an allusive way.

[A]s we are all aware, the Skalds used all sorts of kennings from Jewels, Gold, Silver, &c., to betoken Women, &c. Gold is called "The Sea's Blink (Blik)", and so on, and a female is "Gold's Mistress", "The Goddess of the Golden Jewel", and so forth.

I venture to say that a close study of the style of Piers Plowman would thoroughly dispose of alliteration as chief factor in the kenning-process.