Kenaz is the sixth rune of the Elder Futhark, carrying the phoneme "k" and standing sixth in the first aett. Its reconstructed name relates to a torch or a controlled fire; the Old English rune poem, under the name cen, describes a torch burning bright within a hall. Some traditions connect the name instead to a sore or ulcer, another case of a runes name diverging across the Germanic languages. Its core image is light, warmth and the fire of the craftsman.
Kenaz stands sixth in the aett of Freyr. Its Old English futhorc counterpart, cen, meaning torch or a burning ember, receives a stanza in the Old English Rune Poem describing it as known to every living creature by its fire, bright and blazing, most often burning where noblemen rest within, an image of illumination inside a dwelling. Kenaz survived into the Younger Futhark as kaun, meaning sore or ulcer, a considerably darker sense than the Old English torch, and its Norwegian and Icelandic Rune Poem stanzas describe the affliction of children and a fatal illness respectively, illustrating how sharply a single rune's attested meaning could diverge between the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian traditions.
Runologists reconstruct the Proto-Germanic form behind the name as *kenaz, part of the comparative linguistic evidence, alongside cognate vocabulary across the older Germanic languages, used to establish the name's original sense independent of the later rune poems themselves.