1811. Lex. Bal., s.v. Keep. . . . Mother, your tit won't keep; your daughter will not preserve her virginity.
3. (colloquial).—To maintain a woman for bedservice. Hence keeper = a man who salaries a standing mistress; to go into keeping = to take service as a bed-fellow; to take into keeping
to keep; kept-woman
a salaried smock-servant; house-keeper [or house-bit] (q.v.); keeping-cully (q.v.); etc. [See also Brome (The City Wit), Dramatis Personæ for 'two keeping women', where it seems to stand for lodging-house keeping.]
1579. North, Noble Grecians and Romanes, 'Fabius Maximus' (in Tudor Translations, 1895, ii. 78). My good sister, there was a great speache in the Romaines campe that thou wert kept by one of the chiefest captaines of the garrison.
1640. Randolph, Poems etc., in Wks. [Hazlitt, (1875), ii, 539]. I wonder what should Madam Lesbia mean To keep young Histrio?
1663. Killigrew, Parson's Wedding [Dodsley, Old Plays (1875), xiv. 379]. 'Will you keep me then?' 'keep thee! I'd marry thee as soon' . . . 'no, no keeping, I.' Ibid. 438. Rather than marry, keep a wench.
1678. Dryden, All for Love, Prol. The keeping tonies of the pit.
1679. Dryden, Limberham or The Kind Keeper [Title].
1721. Ramsay, Morning Interview (note), in Wks., i. 281. A kind keeper.
1732. Fielding, Covent Garden Tragedy. And I will let the sooty rascals see A Christian keeps a whore as well as they.
1773. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, i. 2. It was a saying in the place that he kept the best horses, dogs, and girls in the whole county.
1895. Times, 19 June, p. 5, col. 6. They allow their daughter, Alma, to be kept by Herr Mühlink's son.
To keep one's eyes skinned (polished, or peeled, or one's weather eye lifted, nose open, or end up, etc.) verb. phr. (common).—To take care; to maintain a position; to be wide-*awake, or fly (q.v.).
1847. Porter, Big Bear etc., p. 134. Keep your eye skinned for sign, and listen for my horn.
1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West, p. 14. 'Yep, old gal! and keep your nose open; thar's brown-skin about.
1887. Francis, Saddle & Mocassin, 138. If you have business to attend to, you'd best go right along and do it. Keep your eyes skinned of course, but don't stay home.
1888. Froude, The English in the West Indies. Americans keep their eyes skinned as they call it, to look out for other openings.
1890. W. C. Russell, Ocean Tragedy, p. 88. I bade my friend Jack keep his eye polished.
1891. Herald, 19 July. 'Old fellow,' he said, 'we must go with them and keep our eyes peeled, for they don't none of 'em mean to be square any more'n I do.'
1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 21. 'Do you think,' Loudon, 'he replied,' that a man who can paint a thousand-dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his end up in the stock market?
1892. Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, 19 Mar. p. 94, col. 3. 'Don't forget it's Leap Year 'Hity; keep your weather eye peeled.'
To keep company, verb. phr. (old).—1. To go into society; to entertain often and be often entertained.
1658. Brome, Covent Garden Weeded, p. 24. Why, Sir, did not I keep company, think you, when I was young?
2. (colloquial).—To sweetheart: said of both sexes.
1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 140. Mr. Wilkins kept company with Jemima Evans.
