: neatly kept

Examples of kempt in a Sentence

a distinguished-looking gentleman with a kempt beard and an old-world manner
Recent Examples on the Web The creeping ivy of rap had crawled over their white picket fences, across their kempt green lawns, and around their Victorian homes, weakening the old walls between cultures. Jonathan Rowe, SPIN, 5 June 2023 The whole place is well kempt. Amanda Walker, al, 15 Aug. 2020 Silence your internal neat freak A well-kempt garden is the toad’s worst enemy. Molly Marquand, Good Housekeeping, 16 May 2017 There was a whiff of mystery, a sense that something more was going on behind those well-kempt exteriors. Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 9 Feb. 2018 A well-kempt courtyard for visitors conceals the prison’s overcrowding—stuffed to nine times its capacity with up to 250 women sharing a cell. National Geographic, 19 Oct. 2016

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'kempt.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

back-formation from unkempt

First Known Use

1929, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of kempt was in 1929

Dictionary Entries Near kempt

Cite this Entry

“Kempt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kempt. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

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