keep someone busy in English

Forms: keeps someone busy [present, singular, third-person], keeping someone busy [participle, present], kept someone busy [participle, past], kept someone busy [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,kept>}} keep someone busy (third-person singular simple present keeps someone busy, present participle keeping someone busy, simple past and past participle kept someone busy)

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,kept>"
      },
      "expansion": "keep someone busy (third-person singular simple present keeps someone busy, present participle keeping someone busy, simple past and past participle kept someone busy)",
      "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": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_someone_busy-en-verb-ZgRmPK63",
      "links": [
        [
          "ensure",
          "ensure"
        ],
        [
          "attention",
          "attention"
        ],
        [
          "occupied",
          "occupy"
        ],
        [
          "prevent",
          "prevent"
        ],
        [
          "bored",
          "bored"
        ],
        [
          "noticing",
          "notice"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "occupy oneself"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "keep someone occupied"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep someone busy"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone busy",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,kept>"
      },
      "expansion": "keep someone busy (third-person singular simple present keeps someone busy, present participle keeping someone busy, simple past and past participle kept someone busy)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "occupy oneself"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "ensure",
          "ensure"
        ],
        [
          "attention",
          "attention"
        ],
        [
          "occupied",
          "occupy"
        ],
        [
          "prevent",
          "prevent"
        ],
        [
          "bored",
          "bored"
        ],
        [
          "noticing",
          "notice"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "keep someone occupied"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep someone busy"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (1a05e46 and e3d6d4e). 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.

"keep someone busy" meaning in English

Verb