Word.ws English Dictionary

kept a close watch

kept a close watch is the simple past and past participle of keep a close watch.

Meaning of keep a close watch

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To pay careful attention to a situation or a thing, so that you can deal with any changes or problems.
    • The prime minister asked the home secretary to keep a close watch on the flooding situation.

Questions about kept a close watch

What is kept a close watch the simple past and past participle of?
Kept a close watch is the simple past and past participle of keep a close watch.

Words near kept a close watch in the dictionary

  1. keps
  2. kepstra
  3. kepstrum
  4. kept
  5. kept a civil tongue in one's head
  6. kept a close watch
  7. kept a cool head
  8. kept a dog and barked oneself
  9. kept a lid on
  10. kept a look-out
  11. kept a low profile

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kept a close watch (page history and authors); keep a close watch (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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Cite this entry: “kept a close watch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kept_a_close_watch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.