Synonyms

keep the peace

Idioms

Maintain public order; prevent strife. For example, President Clinton ordered troops to Bosnia to keep the peace. This expression dates from the 1400s and was originally used more in the first sense, that is, of police keeping public order. It gained extra currency in the second half of the 1900s when military forces were sent to diverse places—Lebanon, Haiti, Bosnia—to stop warring factions.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The U.S. is banking on Rodriguez to keep the peace.

From The Wall Street Journal

“We Don’t Talk” appears to address her estrangement from her older sister, Haylie, while “Weather for Tennis” describes her tendency to keep the peace as a child of divorce.

From Los Angeles Times

To keep the peace, they learned to institute a strict zoning law: All talk of hockey strategy stayed in the car.

From The Wall Street Journal

But it would also keep the peace, making it harder for ICE to escalate conflicts with the community, while reducing feelings of frustration for activists.

From Salon

Skipp Townsend, who runs the violence prevention group 2nd Call, said he dispatched several of his outreach workers to the scene to keep the peace.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023