Keep calm means to stay calm: not to panic or lose your temper. People use it about situations where it is easy to lose control: an accident, an argument, a difficult exam. Keep someone calm means to stop someone from getting nervous.
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keep calm; keep + someone + calm; stay calm
- When the fire alarm went off, the teacher kept calm and led everyone outside.
- Try to keep calm in the interview, even if they ask a tricky question.
- The pilot's clear announcements kept the passengers calm during the long delay.
What changed
First versionThe captain asked everyone to keep calmness and stay in their seats.
RevisionThe captain asked everyone to keep calm and stay in their seats.
It is tempting to treat keep as “hold on to” and follow it with a noun, calmness. But here keep means “remain”, so it needs calm, the word that describes how you are. Keep calm literally means “stay calm”.
Calm down is what you say to someone who is already upset: Calm down, it's only a scratch. Keep calm means not losing your calm in the first place: Keep calm and wait for the doctor.
Your turn
During the argument, Mark ___ and explained his point politely while the others were shouting.
Show the answer
kept calm — Mark was not silent: he explained his point calmly while the others were shouting. So he kept control of himself, and the answer is kept calm. Kept quiet means he said nothing. Quiet is about silence, not about self-control.
Think of a situation where it was hard not to lose your temper: at work, while travelling or in an exam. Write what happened and how you managed to keep calm.
When our train stopped in a tunnel for an hour, I kept calm by listening to a podcast and texting my family.
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