Word.ws English Dictionary

keep going

keep going verb: to continue functioning; to maintain.

Verb

keep going (third-person singular simple present keeps going, present participle keeping going, simple past and past participle kept going)

  1. (intransitive) To continue functioning; to maintain.
    • The grandfather clock keeps going for over a week without winding.
  2. (transitive) To proceed; to make progress, physically or figuratively.
    • The Gunners have never gone out of the FA Cup in the third round under Arsene Wenger and never lost to a lower division side, two impressive runs they kept going at Elland Road on an evening that was fraught with potential dangers.2011 January 19, Jonathan Stevenson, “Leeds 1 - 3 Arsenal”, in BBC
  3. (transitive) To see that (a person) is continually supplied with something, or that they can progress or carry on.
    • I didn't think I could run any longer, but fear kept me going.
    • I'll put all this meat in my freezer, and it'll keep me going for many months.

Forms of keep going

third-person singular presentkeeps going
present participlekeeping going
past participlekept going
pastkept going

Questions about keep going

What does keep going mean?
Keep going means to continue functioning; to maintain.
What part of speech is keep going?
Keep going is a verb.
What is the past tense of keep going?
The past tense of keep going is kept going.

Words near keep going in the dictionary

  1. keep cups
  2. keep down
  3. keep faith
  4. keep fit
  5. keep from
  6. keep going
  7. keep good hours
  8. keep good time
  9. keep hope alive
  10. keep house
  11. keep in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keep going (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-keep going.ogg.

Cite this entry: “keep going.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keep_going. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.