Recently I got into “eep” words. It started with keep, and moved on to creep, sweep, weep, peep, and steep.

They all come from Middle English words which developed from Old English. Most of the Middle English words rhymed too – kepen, crepen, swepen, wepen – but peep and steep were exceptions. Peep comes from ME pepe, and the adjective steep was steap in olden days. But steep as a verb comes from stepen, so I guess you can describe cold tea as stept.

Back to keep. What a diverse word. How quickly it looks alien.

As a verb with an object, keep means to hold or retain in one’s possession.

As a verb without an object, it means to continue, in an action, course, position, state.

As a noun, it can mean support (earn one’s keep), or the innermost part of a medieval castle, or even a specific game with marbles (Keeps).

Kepen (Old English cēpan) meant to observe, heed, watch, await. It was probably related to an older word that meant to look or stare. Like many words from Old English, it’s strong, solid, basic and bold. I think keep should be kept.