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🏃 To stay level 🛠️ To maintain 😴 To stop sleep
to keep up

to keep up

24 3.0
To stop someone from sleeping by making them stay awake
  • phrasal verb
  • /kip ʌp/
translation icon : no dejar dormir
  • If this keeps up, you're gonna put me out of business!

This is the point that just really keeps me up at night.

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Examples

  • Max was huffing and puffing, having some difficulty keeping up with both the pace.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • What they need right now, what's keeping me up at night is, is that this year needs to be as joyful and as normal year as possible.

  • Those crazy legs kept me up all night.

    Bee Movie (2007)

  • She keeps me up half the night.

    August Rush (2007)

  • If I have a problem I haven't solved or addressed that can keep me up all night.

  • Yet by the first day, his mule was trailing behind the camels, unable to keep up.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • You know, Mr. Correia, psychologists say you can't keep strong emotions pent up all the time.

    Blog text (31)

  • The loud music from the party kept me up all night.

  • Worrying about my upcoming exam kept me up past midnight.

  • My neighbor's barking dog always keeps me up when I'm trying to sleep.

Synonyms

to keep up at night
vsto keep up
6.2

Make someone unable to sleep because of worry, pain or anxiety

cause someone to stay awake by preventing them from going to bed

Antonyms

to rest
816 1.0

To stop activity to relax or sleep and get energy back

to put to sleep
  • Baby Talk
15 2.5

Help a child or baby fall asleep in bed

How Awake

to keep up
24 3.0
to disturb
183 2.1
to wake up
∞ 1.0
to put to sleep
  • Baby Talk
15 2.5

Surface Forms

keep up infinitive
keeping up present participle
keeps up third person singular
kept up past
kept up past participle

Morphology

keep + up

The meaning 'to continue or maintain the same level' is directly derivable from combining 'keep' (to continue or retain) with 'up' (indicating a maintained or higher position/state). This compositional motion/continuation sense is a common phrasal-verb pattern and has clear cross-linguistic parallels, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reasonably infer the meaning.

Etymology

Keep up can mean to stop someone from sleeping; imagine someone telling stories late and keeping a friend up so they cannot sleep, so it means 'prevent someone from sleeping'.