keep up appearances
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Maintain an impression of wealth or well-being.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Her life was a ceaseless round of hard work, of struggling to make ends meet, of keeping up appearances and yet her lion - like spirit showed through.
All my efforts were concentrated on keeping up appearances during those two hours of the day when I was with them.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “keep up appearances” mean?
Maintain an impression of wealth or well-being.
Is “keep up appearances” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.