kei

From English Kei.

kei

1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Kei.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Kei terms

Borrowed from Japanese 軽 (kei, “lightweight”), from Japanese 軽自動車 (keijidōsha).

kei

1. (Japan) A class of lightweight vehicles with small engines.
   • 2025 August 21, Emi Tanimoto, “Nissan Updates Popular Kei Car as It Revamps Aging Lineup”, in Bloomberg News‎^[1], archived from the original on 22 August 2025:

     Nissan Motor Co. revamped one of its more popular lightweight kei cars as the Japanese carmaker refreshes its aging lineup. The fourth-generation Roox will go on sale by the end of the year for ¥1.6 million ($10,800), the company said Friday. The new model has better mileage, more safety features and built-in connectivity. Kei cars account for about a third of Japan’s automobile market and the Roox, a gasoline-powered automobile initially released in 2009, has sold an average of 80,000 units per year, making it one of the more popular kei models among the three that Nissan sells. The carmaker is releasing the vehicle as it looks to cut costs, eliminate jobs and shutter factories. […] Japan’s best-selling kei car is Honda Motor Co.’s N-BOX, which sold more than 200,000 units in 2024. Nissan’s Sakura, also a kei-sized electric car that sells more than 20,000 units annually, is the best-selling battery-powered vehicle in Japan.

Borrowed from Japanese 系 (kei, “style”).

kei

1. (Japan, aesthetic) A type of Japanese street fashion and music aesthetics.

• manpo-kei

From Middle High German enkein (“no, not any”), byform of nechein. The post-nasal position explains the affricate instead of otherwise expected /x/. Conflated with dechein (“any”, later also “no”). This latter form also contributed to the affricate by way of assimilation /tx/ > /kx/. Cognate with German kein, Dutch geen.

• IPA^(key): /kxɛi̯/

kei

1. no, not any; negates indefinite nouns

• The fuller nominative/accusative forms kein, keini are always employed in nominalized use (i.e. as pronouns), but optionally also as determiners.
• Following adjectives are always strong in the nominative/accusative singular, always weak in the dative. The nominative/accusative plural may be strong or weak. Predominantly (but not invariably) it is strong with the short form kei, weak with the full form keini.

kei

1. dative plural of ka

• (Revived Late Cornish) IPA^(key): [kəɪ]

kei m (plural keun)

1. alternative form of ki

• IPA^(key): /kei/

kei

1. to fall

• Tyron, D.T., Hackman, B. (1983), Solomon Islands languages: An internal classification. Cited in: "Dehu" in Greenhill, S.J., Blust, R., & Gray, R.D. (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 4:271–283.
• Leenhardt, M. (1946), Langues et dialectes de l'Austro-Mèlanèsie. Cited in: "ⁿDe’u" in Greenhill, S.J., Blust, R., & Gray, R.D. (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 4:271–283.

From Middle Dutch key, keye, from Old Dutch *kei (in toponym keidīk (“Keidijk”)), perhaps from Proto-West Germanic *kagi (compare kegel (“cone”)), from Proto-Germanic *kagiz.

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛi̯

kei m (plural keien, diminutive keitje n)

1. cobble, cobblestone
2. pebble
3. boulder
4. (figuratively) someone who's an expert at something, whiz

   Ze is een kei in wiskunde.

   She is a whiz at maths.

   Synonym: uitblinker

• eik

kei

1. Rōmaji transcription of けい
2. Rōmaji transcription of ケイ

kei

1. (transitive) to buy
2. (transitive) to receive

• Marian Klamer (1998), A Grammar of Kambera, Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 199

kei

1. nonstandard spelling of kēi
2. nonstandard spelling of kèi

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkei/ [ˈkɛi]

kei

1. at, in (present locative particle)
2. have; in possession of
3. like; as

• “kei” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.

From Proto-Kuki-Chin *kaj ~ kaj-maʔ, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ka (“I; me”).

kei (plural keini)

1. I; me

• Lorrain, J. Herbert (1940), “kei”, in Dictionary of the Lushai language, Calcutta: Asiatic Society

Variant spelling of kye, from Old English cǣg.

• IPA^(key): /kʌj/

kei (plural keis)

1. (Southern Scots) a key

From Proto-Kuki-Chin *kay, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ka.

kei

1. I

• Zomi Ordbog based on the work of D.L. Haokip

From Proto-Kuki-Chin *kay, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ka.

kei

1. I

• Chungkham Yashawanta Singh; Lukram Himmat (2013), A Descriptive Grammar of Zou, Canchipur: Manipur University