alive and kicking
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Active.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Keeping the ball alive and kicking.
Last year JIMI HENDRIX sold a staggering four million albums worldwide — proof that interest in this guitar savant is still alive and kicking.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “Irreversible binomial” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29). Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “alive and kicking” mean?
Active.
Is “alive and kicking” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.