English in everyday life
Proverbs
Explore English sayings from most to least frequent in a published American English corpus. Alternate forms are collected together.
About these frequency groups
Groups use full-form occurrence counts in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), recorded in 2016–2017. For a proverb with several forms, we use the highest individual count, since adding overlapping forms could count the same occurrence twice.
These are historical American English corpus counts, not estimates of how often everyone uses a saying today. A zero means no full-form match was recorded. The source’s separate familiarity ratings are retained in the data but do not determine this ordering.
We grouped variants, merged reviewed duplicate entries, and preserved existing editorial wording. The source includes historical and dated sayings; inclusion is not an endorsement.
Expressions containing keep, including its inflections. Clear word filter
23 entries
Most common
100 or more recorded occurrences
Common
10–99 recorded occurrences
Less common
1–9 recorded occurrences
Keep on trucking
It's cheaper to keep her
You can't keep a good man down
Keep your nose out of other people's business
Keep your sunny side up
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead
Not observed in this corpus
No full-form matches recorded; this does not mean the proverb is never used
A man is known by the company he keeps
Ability can take you to the top, but character is what will keep you there
Don't keep a dog and bark yourself
If you keep your mouth shut, you won't put your foot in it
Keep conscience clear; then never fear
Keep the chain of friendship bright
Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards
Keep your gun loaded
Worry is like a rocking chair; it gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere
Matching variant: Worry is like a rocking chair; it keeps you busy but gets you nowhere