keep someone guessing

Verb

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

1. To act in such a way that others do not fully understand what one has done or do not know what to expect next.
   • She could not even dimly understand Helen's merry protestation that it was fun to make people wonder and keep them guessing.1924, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, “Chapter 7”, in The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson
   • But I do like to delight people with intense, focused, essential flavors, to give them the pure joy of fresh asparagus in springtime. I'm looking to amuse them and maybe (occasionally) keep them guessing: "How did he get that asparagus to taste so... asparagussy?"2006, Geoffrey Zakarian, Geoffrey Zakarian's Town/Country: 150 Recipes for Life Around the Table, New York, N.Y.: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, →ISBN, page 8