KEEP ON • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Keep on

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/kip ɑn/ Listen

verb

Keep v. i. (past & past part. kept; pres. part. keeping)

1.

To remain in any position or state; to continue; to abide; to stay; as, to keep at a distance; to keep aloft; to keep near; to keep in the house; to keep before or behind; to keep in favor; to keep out of company, or out reach.

2.

To last; to endure; to remain unimpaired. "If the malt be not thoroughly dried, the ale it makes will not keep."

3.

To reside for a time; to lodge; to dwell. (Now disused except locally or colloquially.) "Knock at his study, where, they say, he keeps."

4.

To take care; to be solicitous; to watch. (Obs.) "Keep that the lusts choke not the word of God that is in us."

5.

To be in session; as, school keeps to-day. (Colloq.)

To keep from, to abstain or refrain from.

To keep in with, to keep on good terms with; as, to keep in with an opponent.

To keep on, to go forward; to proceed; to continue to advance.

To keep to, to adhere strictly to; not to neglect or deviate from; as, to keep to old customs; to keep to a rule; to keep to one's word or promise.

To keep up, to remain unsubdued; also, not to be confined to one's bed.

See images of 'Keep on'

Etymology of 'Keep on'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Keep on" Quotes from Famous Books

... come an' set on de roof an' scritched. Lissa run out to skeer it away, but Cleve caught her arm. He say, 'Don't do dat, Lissa, leave him alone. Dat's de death bird, he knows what he's doin'. So Lissa didn' do nothin', she let de bird keep on scritchin'. ...

— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... would make her a good husband, he would be able to manage her better than any other man, he was sure of that, because he understood her. She was a queer one: but he thought they'd get along all right. But all this was in the future, so long as Harold lived he'd keep on just as he was; if she met a man she liked better she could have him. He had got on very well without her for the last five years; there was no hurry, he could afford to wait if she couldn't. She had ...

— Celibates • George Moore

... for fifteen dollars even an' stop yore contempt of court an' threats or I'll drill you just for luck!" rejoined Mr. Townsend, angrily. "If you keep on working yore mouth like that there won't be nothing coming to you when I sell that cayuse of yourn. Turn around an' strike out or I'll ...

— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... the first flush of the discovery that he was immensely rich, he may have thanked Heaven as if for a supreme good, and spoken to a Sunday school gathering as if he knew himself for the most favoured of men. But all that happened twenty years ago or more. One does not keep on in that sort of satisfaction; one settles down to the new facts. And such men as Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Pierpont Morgan do not live in a made and protected world with their minds trained, tamed and fed and shielded from outside impressions as royalties do. The thought of the world has ...

— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... little squares for the days of the week, a month on a page, and when we get through a day without saying anything against anybody we can put a nice little cross in, but when we have broken the pledge we must mark it with a cipher, and then when we are just horrid and keep on being cross, we must black the day all over. Then once a week we have to show the books to each other ...

— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

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