kept, ppl. a.
(kɛpt)
[f. keep v.]
In various senses derived from keep v.; spec.
1. a. Maintained or supported by a paramour. Also of a man or boy maintained or supported in a homosexual relationship.
| 1678 Dryden Limberham i. i, A kept mistress too! my bowels yearn to her already. 1741 tr. D'Argens' Chinese Lett. xxii. 152 Some..have Houses of their own, as do most of the Kept-Misses at Paris. 1747 Wesley Jrnl. 22 Nov., About six years ago, she was without God in the world, being a kept mistress. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. IV. 363 A kept woman..having been deserted by her protector, took to furious drinking. 1963 Economist 27 Apr. 304/1 The complete failure to translate his off-beat characteristics into homosexual or kept-man terms. 1966 ‘R. Standish’ Widow Hack xi. 121 The appalling indignities endured by kept men pass belief. 1969 Jeremy I. iii. 25/1 At the upper-end of the scene is the kept-boy who has little or nothing in common with the humbler ‘rent-boy’. |
b. Financially supported by, and in consequence under the private control of, interested persons.
| 1888 Pall Mall G. 29 Sept. 7/2 Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at Nottingham, is reported to have said, ‘..The Irish party is a kept party’. 1900 Daily News 23 Feb. 6/4 The confederacy of international financiers working through a kept Press. |
2. Maintained in ordinary or good condition.
| 1856 Olmsted Slave States 6 The kept grounds are very limited, and in simple but quiet taste. 1897 M. Kingsley W. Africa 67 Every village having a kept piece of ground outside it which is the dancing place for the village. |