keep the peace

Idioms  

1. 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.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

keep the peace

Jeffery does not rule out needing to call on "police resources to keep the peace" once again.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

All these organizations—NCAG, IVC, and ISF—are the names given to new security forces to keep the peace and technocratic groups to form a new government, but here’s the thing: None of them exist yet.

From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026

Here’s the easiest and the smartest route to take: keep the peace while your sister is alive.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 1, 2026

On Wednesday, Paz announced a cabinet reshuffle in a bid to keep the peace.

From Barron's ● May 21, 2026

Above all, I want to keep the peace, and to neither quarrel nor gossip.

From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank