Word.ws English Dictionary

keep the show on the road

keep the show on the road verb: to be able to proceed with a plan or project, often in the face of difficult circumstances.

Verb

keep the show on the road (third-person singular simple present keeps the show on the road, present participle keeping the show on the road, simple past and past participle kept the show on the road)

  1. (idiomatic) To be able to proceed with a plan or project, often in the face of difficult circumstances.
    • So what next? For now, at least, the prevailing wisdom in Europe is that people need something to divert them from the ongoing nightmares elsewhere. […] Best, some insist, to keep the show on the road and then duck and dive in the event of further Covid-19 issues.2021 January 12, Robert Kitson, “Is it morally right for rugby to host the Six Nations in a pandemic?”, in The Guardian
    • This forced the company to focus on developing advanced projects on its books. And fast. All too often, it ended up selling out at an early stage just to get money in to keep the show on the road.2021 January 22, Joe Brennan, “Has Eddie O’Connor underestimated the value of his €1bn baby?”, in The Irish Times

Forms of keep the show on the road

third-person singular presentkeeps the show on the road
present participlekeeping the show on the road
past participlekept the show on the road
pastkept the show on the road

Questions about keep the show on the road

What does keep the show on the road mean?
Keep the show on the road means to be able to proceed with a plan or project, often in the face of difficult circumstances.
What part of speech is keep the show on the road?
Keep the show on the road is a verb.
What is the past tense of keep the show on the road?
The past tense of keep the show on the road is kept the show on the road.

Words near keep the show on the road in the dictionary

  1. keep the peace
  2. keep the pot boiling
  3. keep the powder dry
  4. keep the rent down
  5. keep the rent low
  6. keep the show on the road
  7. keep the wolf from the door
  8. keep time
  9. keep to
  10. keep to one's knitting
  11. keep to one's own knitting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keep the show on the road (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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