Keming

//ˈkɛmɪŋ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Improper kerning. Internet, humorous, uncountable

    "When done correctly, kerning helps to improve the readability of text by adding or removing space between two letters. Bad kerning, also known as keming, leads to misreadings, and in the worst cases, incredibly bad (but humorous) misunderstandings."

Example

More examples

"When done correctly, kerning helps to improve the readability of text by adding or removing space between two letters. Bad kerning, also known as keming, leads to misreadings, and in the worst cases, incredibly bad (but humorous) misunderstandings."

Etymology

Coined by various sources in the early 1990s as a deliberate misspelling of kerning by combining the r and n into an m, as an example of improper kerning due to the increasing growth of desktop publishing.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.