keeping

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of keep.

   The crew is keeping a close watch on the rising water.

   Keeping the secret proved harder than she had expected.

   Note

   The -ing form carries the verb's full range, from keeping a promise to keeping accounts. As a gerund it still behaves like a verb and takes a direct object, as in keeping the secret. The nouns that share its spelling take of instead: compare keeping livestock with the "upkeep" noun in the keeping of livestock. The plural keepings belongs only to the nouns.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Responsibility for the care, custody, or protection of someone or something.

   The jewels were left in her keeping while the family traveled abroad.

   The court documents remained in the lawyer's keeping for safe storage.

   Similarcare, custody, charge, protection

   Note

   Custody is expressed through a possessive frame: in her keeping, in the lawyer's keeping. Robert South's Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions (1692–1717) stretches it past objects held for someone: "His happiness is in his own keeping." Don't confuse it with the "harmony" meaning. In keeping with takes with and no possessive, and in one's keeping takes a possessive and no with.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Agreement, consistency, or harmony between one thing and another; conformity.

   The bright decorations felt out of keeping with the gloomy weather outside.

   His generous reply was entirely in keeping with his reputation for kindness.

   Similarharmony, accordance, line, agreement, conformity

   Note

   Its natural home is the phrase in keeping with and its negative, out of keeping with, as in songs that are new but in keeping with tradition. The phrase can also stand alone, without with, when the standard of comparison is understood: a painting's foreground can simply be not in keeping, meaning it jars with the rest of the picture.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Maintenance and support; the provision of food and other necessities, especially for animals or dependents.

   The keeping of livestock requires steady supplies of feed and shelter.

   His wages barely covered the keeping of a wife and four young children.

   Similarupkeep, maintenance, support, care

   Note

   The word covers upkeep for beasts and people alike. A farmer can say the cattle have good keeping, meaning they are well fed. John Milton's Samson Agonistes (1671) speaks of "the work of many hands, which earns my keeping." As the object of earn, keeping is plainly what one is given to live on, not the act of holding something.

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