keep someone on their toes in English

Audio: En-au-keep one on one's toes.ogg

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

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

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

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "keep<,,kept> someone on their toes"
      },
      "expansion": "keep someone on their toes (third-person singular simple present keeps someone on their toes, present participle keeping someone on their toes, simple past and past participle kept someone on their toes)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English light verb constructions",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Four-year-old twins will certainly keep you on your toes!",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To keep someone attentive, active, busy or alert."
      ],
      "id": "en-keep_someone_on_their_toes-en-verb-6c1OnVTG",
      "links": [
        [
          "attentive",
          "attentive"
        ],
        [
          "active",
          "active"
        ],
        [
          "busy",
          "busy"
        ],
        [
          "alert",
          "alert"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To keep someone attentive, active, busy or alert."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to keep one attentive, active, busy or alert",
          "word": "pitää varpaillaan"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to keep one attentive, active, busy or alert",
          "word": "auf Trab halten"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-keep one on one's toes.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e3/En-au-keep_one_on_one%27s_toes.ogg/En-au-keep_one_on_one%27s_toes.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/En-au-keep_one_on_one%27s_toes.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU) “keep one on one’s toes”"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep someone on their toes"
}

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

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "keeps someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "keeping someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kept someone on their toes",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "keep<,,kept> someone on their toes"
      },
      "expansion": "keep someone on their toes (third-person singular simple present keeps someone on their toes, present participle keeping someone on their toes, simple past and past participle kept someone on their toes)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English light verb constructions",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Four-year-old twins will certainly keep you on your toes!",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To keep someone attentive, active, busy or alert."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "attentive",
          "attentive"
        ],
        [
          "active",
          "active"
        ],
        [
          "busy",
          "busy"
        ],
        [
          "alert",
          "alert"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To keep someone attentive, active, busy or alert."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-keep one on one's toes.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e3/En-au-keep_one_on_one%27s_toes.ogg/En-au-keep_one_on_one%27s_toes.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/En-au-keep_one_on_one%27s_toes.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU) “keep one on one’s toes”"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to keep one attentive, active, busy or alert",
      "word": "pitää varpaillaan"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to keep one attentive, active, busy or alert",
      "word": "auf Trab halten"
    }
  ],
  "word": "keep someone on their toes"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (e268c0e and 304864d). 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 on their toes" meaning in English

Verb