Word.ws English Dictionary

keep straight

keep straight verb: to avoid confusing or mixing up something; to keep something clear or organized.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To avoid confusing or mixing up something; to keep something clear or organized.
    • Their names all sounded the same to me at first, and I had trouble keeping straight who was who.

Forms of keep straight

third-person singular presentkeeps straight
present participlekeeping straight
past participlekept straight
pastkept straight

Questions about keep straight

What does keep straight mean?
Keep straight means to avoid confusing or mixing up something; to keep something clear or organized.
What part of speech is keep straight?
Keep straight is a verb.
What is the past tense of keep straight?
The past tense of keep straight is kept straight.

Words near keep straight in the dictionary

  1. keep someone posted up
  2. keep someone sweet
  3. keep someone up at night
  4. keep someone up late
  5. keep soul and body together
  6. keep straight
  7. keep stumm
  8. keep tabs on
  9. keep telling yourself that
  10. keep term
  11. keep the baby

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keep straight (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 straight.ogg.

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