keep one's nerve
keep one's nerve verb: to keep one's cool.
Verb
keep one's nerve (third-person singular simple present keeps one's nerve, present participle keeping one's nerve, simple past and past participle kept one's nerve)
- To keep one's cool
- There in crisp fifty-pound notes was the answer to so many of his and his father’s problems. When he thought no one was looking, Frank moved his left foot slowly forward to cover it. If he kept his nerve, he could craftily slide it out of the room.2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN
Forms of keep one's nerve
| third-person singular present | keeps one's nerve |
|---|---|
| present participle | keeping one's nerve |
| past participle | kept one's nerve |
| past | kept one's nerve |
Questions about keep one's nerve
- What does keep one's nerve mean?
- Keep one's nerve means to keep one's cool.
- What part of speech is keep one's nerve?
- Keep one's nerve is a verb.
- What is the past tense of keep one's nerve?
- The past tense of keep one's nerve is kept one's nerve.
Words near keep one's nerve in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: keep one's nerve (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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