keep someone on their toes
keep someone on their toes verb: to keep someone attentive, active, busy or alert.
Verb
keep someone on their toes (third-person singular simple present keeps someone on their toes, present participle keeping someone on their toes, simple past and past participle kept someone on their toes)
Forms of keep someone on their toes
| third-person singular present | keeps someone on their toes |
|---|---|
| present participle | keeping someone on their toes |
| past participle | kept someone on their toes |
| past | kept someone on their toes |
Questions about keep someone on their toes
- What does keep someone on their toes mean?
- Keep someone on their toes means to keep someone attentive, active, busy or alert.
- What part of speech is keep someone on their toes?
- Keep someone on their toes is a verb.
- What is the past tense of keep someone on their toes?
- The past tense of keep someone on their toes is kept someone on their toes.
Words near keep someone on their toes in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: keep someone on their toes (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-keep one on one's toes.ogg.
Cite this entry: “keep someone on their toes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keep_someone_on_their_toes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.