to keep someone company
68
1.6
- phrasal verb
:
hacer compañía
- I can sit with you to keep you company while you wait for your flight.
Examples
-
Does he intend to sit down and keep me company for the night?
Fiction book (1998) -
Christian asked me to keep you company, and I'm happy to do him the favor.
-
Or I can stay up with you, keep you company.
-
Um, could you keep my client company until I get back?
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Well, maybe I could... come over there and keep you company.
-
Well, do you want to keep me company?
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Sit down and keep me company.
-
I need someone to come with me and keep me company.
Fiction book (1993) -
I'll send someone in to keep you company.
-
"Ben, will you stay here and keep me company?" my grandmother asked.
Fiction book (1990)
Synonyms
41
2.2
Stay with someone so they are not alone
Antonyms
How Present
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to stay with someone so they are not alone' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'keep' (to maintain) with 'company' (someone's social presence), so a learner who knows the constituents can infer the expression. This composition is a common, cross-linguistic pattern (e.g., Spanish 'hacer compañía', French 'tenir compagnie'), which supports immediate comprehension at B1.
Etymology
Keep someone company comes from the simple picture of a friend staying beside a person who feels alone, where keep means to stay with and company means being with someone. So it now means 'to stay with someone so they are not alone'.