keep time
idiom
1
of a watch or clock
: to show the correct time
My watch keeps good/perfect time.
2
music
: to perform music at the correct speed
Among other things, the conductor helps the orchestra keep time (to the music).
Examples of keep time in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Unfortunately, these early clocks were lousy timekeepers, their ability to keep time deteriorating along with the battery.
—
IEEE Spectrum, 29 Feb. 2024
If the offense wants to keep time rolling, its best play will be run the football while staying inbounds.
11d ago / 6:59 PM PST
Jason Abbruzzese
This is particularly important right now.
—Jason Abbruzzese, NBC News, 12 Feb. 2024
Circadian clocks keep time everywhere from your liver and lungs to your nose and toes.
—TIME, 9 Mar. 2024
Water clocks also use the laws of nature to keep time through the steady, predictable water flow and observe the changing levels.
—Markus Lutz, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024
But the robot didn't have ears to hear a timer ding, and its own processor could keep time anyway.
—David Berreby, Scientific American, 20 Feb. 2024
Introduction How Life Keeps Time Eons before the invention of sundials, watches and atomic clocks, organisms evolved biological tools to keep time.
—Quanta Magazine, 19 Dec. 2023
The latter is a nod to the Marx Brothers Duck Soup (1933); Duchovny and McKean rehearsed the sequence and used a metronome during filming to keep time.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 10 Sep. 2023
Perhaps our modern 28-day rhythms are evolutionary leftovers, cobbled together from bits of older cellular clockwork that, in some shallow primordial sea, once helped marine worms keep time to the cycle of the moon.
—Elise Cutts, Quanta Magazine, 19 Dec. 2023
IEEE Spectrum, 29 Feb. 2024
If the offense wants to keep time rolling, its best play will be run the football while staying inbounds.
11d ago / 6:59 PM PST
Jason Abbruzzese
This is particularly important right now.
—Jason Abbruzzese, NBC News, 12 Feb. 2024
Circadian clocks keep time everywhere from your liver and lungs to your nose and toes.
—TIME, 9 Mar. 2024
Water clocks also use the laws of nature to keep time through the steady, predictable water flow and observe the changing levels.
—Markus Lutz, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024
But the robot didn't have ears to hear a timer ding, and its own processor could keep time anyway.
—David Berreby, Scientific American, 20 Feb. 2024
Introduction How Life Keeps Time Eons before the invention of sundials, watches and atomic clocks, organisms evolved biological tools to keep time.
—Quanta Magazine, 19 Dec. 2023
The latter is a nod to the Marx Brothers Duck Soup (1933); Duchovny and McKean rehearsed the sequence and used a metronome during filming to keep time.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 10 Sep. 2023
Perhaps our modern 28-day rhythms are evolutionary leftovers, cobbled together from bits of older cellular clockwork that, in some shallow primordial sea, once helped marine worms keep time to the cycle of the moon.
—Elise Cutts, Quanta Magazine, 19 Dec. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'keep time.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near keep time
Cite this Entry
“Keep time.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/keep%20time. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
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