"keep one's head down" meaning in English

See keep one's head down in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-keep one's head down.ogg [Australia] Forms: keeps one's head down [present, singular, third-person], keeping one's head down [participle, present], kept one's head down [participle, past], kept one's head down [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|keep<,,kept> one's head down}} keep one's head down (third-person singular simple present keeps one's head down, present participle keeping one's head down, simple past and past participle kept one's head down)
  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see keep, one, head, down. Related terms: keep a low profile
    Sense id: en-keep_one's_head_down-en-verb-YKM0DFe3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 77 23
  2. (idiomatic) To avoid trouble or attention. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-keep_one's_head_down-en-verb-9RNdKpQb

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for keep one's head down meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "keep<,,kept> one's head down"
      },
      "expansion": "keep one's head down (third-person singular simple present keeps one's head down, present participle keeping one's head down, simple past and past participle kept one's head down)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "77 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I had to keep my head down so my ex wouldn't recognize me as I walked by.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see keep, one, head, down."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_one's_head_down-en-verb-YKM0DFe3",
      "links": [
        [
          "keep",
          "keep#English"
        ],
        [
          "one",
          "one#English"
        ],
        [
          "head",
          "head#English"
        ],
        [
          "down",
          "down#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "89 11",
          "word": "keep a low profile"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He's keeping his head down after being blasted for his offensive tweets.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To avoid trouble or attention."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_one's_head_down-en-verb-9RNdKpQb",
      "links": [
        [
          "trouble",
          "trouble"
        ],
        [
          "attention",
          "attention"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To avoid trouble or attention."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-keep one's head down.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/80/En-au-keep_one%27s_head_down.ogg/En-au-keep_one%27s_head_down.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/En-au-keep_one%27s_head_down.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep one's head down"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept one's head down",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "keep<,,kept> one's head down"
      },
      "expansion": "keep one's head down (third-person singular simple present keeps one's head down, present participle keeping one's head down, simple past and past participle kept one's head down)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "keep a low profile"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I had to keep my head down so my ex wouldn't recognize me as I walked by.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see keep, one, head, down."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "keep",
          "keep#English"
        ],
        [
          "one",
          "one#English"
        ],
        [
          "head",
          "head#English"
        ],
        [
          "down",
          "down#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He's keeping his head down after being blasted for his offensive tweets.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To avoid trouble or attention."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "trouble",
          "trouble"
        ],
        [
          "attention",
          "attention"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To avoid trouble or attention."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-keep one's head down.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/80/En-au-keep_one%27s_head_down.ogg/En-au-keep_one%27s_head_down.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/En-au-keep_one%27s_head_down.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep one's head down"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.