keep one's nose clean
keep one's nose clean verb: to stay out of trouble, especially by avoiding unlawful behavior.
Verb
keep one's nose clean (third-person singular simple present keeps one's nose clean, present participle keeping one's nose clean, simple past and past participle kept one's nose clean)
- To stay out of trouble, especially by avoiding unlawful behavior.
- They tell us, "Keep your nose clean and you'll no doubt make a parole." So we keep our noses very clean.1947, American Correctional Association, American Journal of Correction, page 6
- Alaska Congressman Don Young . . . spent a huge share of his campaign donations on legal fees to keep his nose clean in the face of an FBI investigation into his dealings.2008 November 5, Nathan Thornburgh, “Ted Stevens Sins, and (Likely) Wins”, in Time, retrieved 25 Aug 2013
Forms of keep one's nose clean
| third-person singular present | keeps one's nose clean |
|---|---|
| present participle | keeping one's nose clean |
| past participle | kept one's nose clean |
| past | kept one's nose clean |
Questions about keep one's nose clean
- What does keep one's nose clean mean?
- Keep one's nose clean means to stay out of trouble, especially by avoiding unlawful behavior.
- What part of speech is keep one's nose clean?
- Keep one's nose clean is a verb.
- What is the past tense of keep one's nose clean?
- The past tense of keep one's nose clean is kept one's nose clean.
Words near keep one's nose clean in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: keep one's nose clean (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-au-keep one's nose clean.ogg.
Cite this entry: “keep one's nose clean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keep_one%27s_nose_clean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.