"keep a close watch" meaning in English

See keep a close watch in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-keep a close watch.ogg [Australia] Forms: keeps a close watch [present, singular, third-person], keeping a close watch [participle, present], kept a close watch [participle, past], kept a close watch [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,kept>}} keep a close watch (third-person singular simple present keeps a close watch, present participle keeping a close watch, simple past and past participle kept a close watch)
  1. (idiomatic) To pay careful attention to a situation or a thing, so that you can deal with any changes or problems. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: keep an eye on Translations (pay careful attention): 密切留意 (mìqiè liúyì) (Chinese Mandarin), pitää tarkasti silmällä (Finnish)

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,kept>"
      },
      "expansion": "keep a close watch (third-person singular simple present keeps a close watch, present participle keeping a close watch, simple past and past participle kept a close watch)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Mandarin translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              47,
              65
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The prime minister asked the home secretary to keep a close watch on the flooding situation.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pay careful attention to a situation or a thing, so that you can deal with any changes or problems."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_a_close_watch-en-verb-G2-6X1IN",
      "links": [
        [
          "attention",
          "attention"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To pay careful attention to a situation or a thing, so that you can deal with any changes or problems."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "keep an eye on"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "lang_code": "cmn",
          "roman": "mìqiè liúyì",
          "sense": "pay careful attention",
          "word": "密切留意"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "lang_code": "fi",
          "sense": "pay careful attention",
          "word": "pitää tarkasti silmällä"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-keep a close watch.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/1b/En-au-keep_a_close_watch.ogg/En-au-keep_a_close_watch.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/En-au-keep_a_close_watch.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep a close watch"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept a close watch",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,kept>"
      },
      "expansion": "keep a close watch (third-person singular simple present keeps a close watch, present participle keeping a close watch, simple past and past participle kept a close watch)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "keep an eye on"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Finnish translations",
        "Terms with Mandarin translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              47,
              65
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The prime minister asked the home secretary to keep a close watch on the flooding situation.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pay careful attention to a situation or a thing, so that you can deal with any changes or problems."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "attention",
          "attention"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To pay careful attention to a situation or a thing, so that you can deal with any changes or problems."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-keep a close watch.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/1b/En-au-keep_a_close_watch.ogg/En-au-keep_a_close_watch.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/En-au-keep_a_close_watch.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "lang_code": "cmn",
      "roman": "mìqiè liúyì",
      "sense": "pay careful attention",
      "word": "密切留意"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "pay careful attention",
      "word": "pitää tarkasti silmällä"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep a close watch"
}

Download raw JSONL data for keep a close watch meaning in English (2.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.