# keep

Pronunciation: say "KEEP" US /kip/, UK/AUS /kiːp/

## Verb

1. To stay, or make someone or something stay, in a particular state, place, or condition.
   - Simple: To stay, or make something stay, a certain way, as in keep warm or keep the door shut.
   - _Keep the door shut._
   - _The noise kept me awake all night._
2. To continue doing something; used with a present participle.
   - Simple: To go on doing something, used with a verb ending in -ing.
   - _Keep going, you're nearly there._
   - _They kept walking until dark._
3. To maintain possession of something.
   - Simple: To have something and not give it away.
   - _Can I keep the change?_
   - _She kept every letter he wrote._
4. To hold someone or something back, off, or away from something; to prevent or protect.
   - Simple: To stop someone or something from going somewhere or doing something, as in keep the dog off the sofa.
   - _Keep the dog off the sofa._
   - _We put up a tall fence to keep the deer out of the vegetable garden._
5. To continue in a course or mode of action; to uphold or maintain.
   - Simple: To go on acting in a certain way, without stopping or changing.
   - _Drummers keep time for the band._
   - _He kept pace with the leaders to the last lap._
6. To refrain from telling a secret.
   - Simple: To not tell anyone a secret you know.
   - _Can you keep a secret?_
   - _He kept the news to himself for a week._
7. To observe or carry out something such as a promise, law, custom, or holiday, without breaking or neglecting it.
   - Simple: To do what a promise, rule, or custom asks, or to celebrate a holiday, as in 'keep your word'.
   - _Monks keep a rule of silence._
   - _She kept the old customs all her life._
8. To record transactions, accounts, or events in a book such as a diary or log.
   - Simple: To write things down regularly in a record.
   - _Sailors keep a log of every watch._
   - _She kept careful accounts of the household._
9. To raise and look after animals or plants, for example as a hobby or for food.
   - Simple: To raise or care for animals or plants.
   - _We keep two goats for milk._
   - _She kept orchids in the spare room._
11. To stay fit to eat, or otherwise in usable condition, without spoiling.
   - Simple: To stay good to eat or use and not go bad.
   - _Fresh fish will not keep overnight without ice._
   - _Honey keeps for years._
13. To stock particular goods regularly so that they are available for sale.
   - Simple: To usually have certain goods in a shop to sell.
   - _Do you keep camping stoves?_
   - _The chemist kept everything a village could need._
14. To maintain, conduct, or manage an establishment or institution.
   - Simple: To run a shop, school or house.
   - _Who will keep the inn when he retires?_
   - _Her aunt kept a boarding house by the sea._
15. To supply a person with necessities and support them financially.
   - Simple: To pay for the things another person needs to live.
   - _He could not keep a wife on that wage._
   - _On his small wage, he could barely keep himself, let alone a wife and children._
10. To return something to its place or store it away. *(Singapore, Wales)*
   - Simple: To put something away, back where it belongs.
   - _Go and keep your toys in the box before dinner._
   - _He kept the dishes in the cupboard after dinner._
19. In cricket, to act as wicketkeeper.
   - Simple: In cricket, to be the player who stands behind the wicket.
   - _Few players both keep and open the batting._
   - _She kept in every match of the series._

## Noun

12. The food or money a person needs to stay alive and healthy; their support and maintenance.
   - Simple: The food and money a person needs to live.
   - _Her keep cost the family more than her wages brought in._
   - _Lodgers paid for their keep by the week._
16. In a castle or fortress, the principal tower, which stands within the surrounding walls.
   - Simple: The strongest tower of a castle, inside the walls.
   - _From the keep you could see the whole valley._
   - _Later castles had no keeps at all._
17. The state of being kept, or the resulting condition.
   - Simple: The state something is in from the way it has been cared for.

## Verb

18. To be a regular visitor at a place; frequent. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To go to a place often, or to haunt it.

## Other meanings

- (noun) In engineering, a cap for holding something, such as a journal box, in place.
- (verb) To stay within a place without leaving it, as when an illness confines you there.
- (verb) To live or stay somewhere for a period of time.
- (verb) At Cambridge University, to live in college accommodation.
- (verb) To watch and wait for someone or something to come.
- (verb) To pay careful attention or be concerned about something.
- (verb) To be held or carry on business, said of a school, court or meeting.
- (noun) Responsibility for looking after or guarding something or someone.
- (noun) A person or thing placed in someone's care.
- (noun) A woman who has an ongoing sexual relationship with a man who is married to someone else and supports her.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–11, 13–15, 18–19** — From Middle English kepen ("to keep, guard, look after"), from Old English cēpan ("to seize, hold, observe"), going back through Proto-Germanic *kōpijaną ("to look, heed, watch") to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to look after."
**Meanings 12, 16–17** — From Middle English kepe or kep, formed from the verb (see above). The castle sense may instead go back to Middle English kype, "basket," a name given to a barrel-shaped tower at Guînes in the 1370s and later linked to the verb.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/keep (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).