keeper

American  

[kee-per] / ˈki pər /

noun

• keepers
  plural

1. a person who guards or watches, as at a prison or gate.

   Synonyms:

   jailer, warden

2. a person who assumes responsibility for another's behavior.

   He refused to be his brother's keeper.

   Synonyms:

   guardian, custodian

3. a person who owns or operates a business (usually used in combination).

   a hotelkeeper.

4. a person who is responsible for the maintenance of something (often used in combination).

   a zookeeper; a groundskeeper.

5. a person charged with responsibility for the preservation and conservation of something valuable, as a curator or game warden.

6. a person who conforms to or abides by a requirement.

   a keeper of his word.

7. a fish that is of sufficient size to be caught and retained without violating the law.

8. Football. a play in which the quarterback retains the ball and runs with it, usually after faking a hand-off or pass.

9. something that serves to hold in place, retain, etc., as on a door lock.

10. something that lasts well, as a fruit.

11. guard ring.

12. an iron or steel bar placed across the poles of a permanent horseshoe magnet for preserving the strength of the magnet during storage.

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keeper British  

/ ˈkiːpə /

noun

1. a person in charge of animals, esp in a zoo

2. a person in charge of a museum, collection, or section of a museum

3. a person in charge of other people, such as a warder in a jail

4. See goalkeeper wicketkeeper gamekeeper

5. a person who keeps something

6. a device, such as a clip, for keeping something in place

7. a soft iron or steel bar placed across the poles of a permanent magnet to close the magnetic circuit when it is not in use

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• keepership
  noun
• underkeeper
  noun
• keeperless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• keepers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of keeper

First recorded in 1250–1300, keeper is from the Middle English word keper. See keep, -er ¹

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Explanation

A keeper is someone who is responsible for something, especially a property or a lot of animals. A keeper might take care of a big summer house during the winter months. You can use keeper to mean "caretaker," someone whose job involves maintaining a house, farm, estate, or grounds. The keeper of a golf course might, for example, keep the greens tidy and groomed. It's also shorthand for zookeeper, or a person who cares for the animals in a zoo. Since about 1300, keeper has meant "one who has charge of some person or thing." It comes from keep and its Old English root cepan, "seize or hold."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

keeper keepers

Herbert melted down, getting stonewalled on a fourth-and-one keeper, fumbling away the next possession, then ending the next with an interception.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2026

Instead, the largest increases occurred around predictable events such as keeper arrivals and times when the animals were moved between areas of their habitat.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 7, 2026

I’m not trying to become my mother’s financial keeper.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

And they made big changes to their squad this summer, with £117m attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers and new first-choice keeper Emiliano Martinez both coming in from Aston Villa.

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026

To the tavern keeper, who had warned him, and to whom he’d given his word he’d return the gun?

From "The Fighting Ground" by Avi

In “Beowulf” and other works, these wetlands have also offered a useful literary metaphor as keepers of cultural memory and symbols of repressed terrors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Did the keepers of Christie’s legacy object to anything in your manuscript?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

Zoo keepers first became concerned when the snake began eating less and spending more time inactive.

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026

With no operating table built for the python's size, keepers and vets said they had to improvise by connecting two operating tables together.

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026

The crushed bones of kings or warriors or wisdom keepers?

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

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Related Words

• attendant
• caretaker
• curator
• custodian
• defender

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