K.
KEEP. To lodge, live, dwell, or inhabit. To keep in such a place, is to have rooms there. This word, though formerly used extensively, is now confined to colleges and universities.
Inquire of anybody you meet in the court of a college at Cambridge your way to Mr. A——’s room, you will be told that he keeps on such a staircase, up so many pair of stairs, door to the right or left.—Forby’s Vocabulary, Vol. II. p. 178.
He said I ought to have asked for his rooms, or inquired where he kept.—Gent. Mag., 1795, p. 118.
Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, cites this very apposite passage from Shakespeare: “Knock at the study where they say he keeps.” Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, says of the word: “This is noted as an Americanism in the Monthly Anthology, Vol. V. p. 428. It is less used now than formerly.”
To keep an act, in the English universities, “to perform an exercise in the public schools preparatory to the proceeding in degrees.” The phrase was formerly in use in Harvard College. In an account in the Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. I. p. 245, entitled New England’s First Fruits, is the following in reference to that institution: “The students of the first classis that have beene these foure yeeres trained up in University learning, and are approved for their manners, as they have kept their publick Acts in former yeeres, ourselves being present at them; so have they lately kept two solemn Acts for their Commencement.”
To keep chapel, in colleges, to attend Divine services, which are there performed daily.
“As you have failed to make up your number of chapels the last two weeks,” such are the very words of the Dean, “you will, if you please, keep every chapel till the end of the term.”—Household Words, Vol. II. p. 161.
To keep a term, in universities, is to reside during a term.—Webster.
KEYS. Caius, the name of one of the colleges in the University of Cambridge, Eng., is familiarly pronounced Keys.
KINGSMAN. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of King’s College.
He came out the winner, with the Kingsman and one of our three close at his heels.—Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 127.
KITCHEN-HATCH. A half-door between the kitchen and the hall in colleges and old mansions. At Harvard College, the students in former times received at the kitchen-hatch their food for the evening meal, which they were allowed to eat in the yard or at their rooms. At the same place the waiters also took the food which they carried to the tables.
The waiters when the bell rings at meal-time shall take the victuals at the kitchen-hatch, and carry the Same to the several tables for which they are designed.—Laws Harv. Coll., 1798, p. 41.
See BUTTERY-HATCH.
KNOCK IN. A phrase used at Oxford, and thus explained in the Collegian’s Guide: “Knocking in late, or coming into college after eleven or twelve o’clock, is punished frequently with being ‘confined to gates,’ or being forbidden to ‘knock in’ or come in after nine o’clock for a week or more, sometimes all the term.”—p. 161.
KNOCKS. From KNUCKLES. At some of the Southern colleges, a game at marbles called Knucks is a common diversion among the students.
[Greek: Kudos]. Greek; literally, glory, fame. Used among students, with the meaning credit, reputation.
I was actuated not merely by a desire after the promotion of my own [Greek: kudos], but by an honest wish to represent my country well.—Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, pp. 27, 28.