Word.ws English Dictionary

keep someone busy

keep someone busy verb: to ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something.

Synonyms of keep someone busy

Forms of keep someone busy

third-person singular presentkeeps someone busy
present participlekeeping someone busy
past participlekept someone busy
pastkept someone busy

Questions about keep someone busy

What does keep someone busy mean?
Keep someone busy means to ensure that someone's attention is occupied, often to prevent them from becoming bored or noticing something.
What part of speech is keep someone busy?
Keep someone busy is a verb.
What is the past tense of keep someone busy?
The past tense of keep someone busy is kept someone busy.

Words near keep someone busy in the dictionary

  1. keep score
  2. keep shady
  3. keep shtum
  4. keep sight of
  5. keep someone amused
  6. keep someone busy
  7. keep someone company
  8. keep someone guessing
  9. keep someone honest
  10. keep someone in the loop
  11. keep someone occupied

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keep someone busy (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.

Last updated:

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