key
Meanings
- An object designed to open and close a lock.
- An object designed to fit between two other objects (such as a shaft and a wheel) in a mechanism and maintain their relative orientation.
- A crucial step or requirement.
- A small guide explaining symbols or terminology, especially the legend on a map or chart.
- A guide to the correct answers of a worksheet or test.
- One of several small, usually square buttons on a typewriter or computer keyboard, mostly corresponding to text characters.
- In musical instruments, one of the valve levers used to select notes, such as a lever opening a hole on a woodwind.
- In instruments with a keyboard such as an organ or piano, one of the levers, or especially the exposed front end of it, which are depressed to cause a particular sound or note to be produced.
- A scale or group of pitches constituting the basis of a musical composition.
- The lowest note of a scale; keynote.
- In musical theory, the total melodic and harmonic relations, which exist between the tones of an ideal scale, major or minor; tonality.
- In musical theory and notation, the tonality centering in a given tone, or the several tones taken collectively, of a given scale, major or minor.
- Indispensable, supremely important.
- Important, salient.
- To fit (a lock) with a key.
- To fit (pieces of a mechanical assembly) with a key to maintain the orientation between them.
- To mark or indicate with a symbol indicating membership in a class.
- To depress (a telegraph key).
- To operate (the transmitter switch of a two-way radio).
- (more usually to key in) To enter (information) by typing on a keyboard or keypad.
- To vandalize (a car, etc.) by scratching with an implement such as a key.
- To link (as one might do with a key or legend).
- To be identified as a certain taxon when using a key.
- To modify (an advertisement) so as to target a particular group or demographic.
- To attune to; to set at; to pitch.
- To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges.
- One of a string of small islands.
- A kilogram, especially of a recreational drug.
- Alternative form of quay.
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English keye, kaye, keiȝe, from Old English cǣġ (“key, solution, experiment”) (whence also Scots key and kay (“key”)), from Anglo-Frisian Proto-West Germanic *kaiju, of uncertain origin. The only sure cognates are Saterland Frisian Koai (“key”), West Frisian kaai (“key”), and North Frisian kai, koie (“key”). Possibly from Proto-Germanic *kēgaz, *kēguz (“stake, post, pole”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵogʰ-, *ǵegʰ-, *ǵegʰn- (“branch, stake, bush”), which would make it cognate with Middle Low German kāk (“whipping post, pillory”), and perhaps to Middle Dutch keige (“javelin, spear”) and Middle Low German keie, keige (“spear”). For the semantic development, note that medieval keys were simply long poles (ending in a hook) with which a crossbar obstructing a door from the inside could be removed from the outside, by lifting it through a hole in the door. Liberman has noted, however, "The original meaning of *kaig-jo- was presumably '*pin with a twisted end.' Words with the root *kai- followed by a consonant meaning 'crooked, bent; twisted' are common only in the North Germanic languages."