keep company with

phrase

: to spend time with (someone)

He keeps company with the rich and famous.

" … But if you keep company with a disloyal man, we might think that you were disloyal, too. See?"

—Arthur Conan Doyle

(old-fashioned) She's been keeping company with a young man. = A young man has been keeping company with her. [=They have been spending time together in a way that shows romantic interest.]

[Charlie] Chaplin continued making great movies, but the original innocence began to wane. Once he started keeping company with the likes of Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw, he wanted to make masterpieces, at times spending weeks on filming a single shot.

—The Associated Press

—sometimes used figuratively

In her garden, roses keep company with lilies.

Word History

First Known Use

1502, in the meaning defined above