*thought*

[conuly]

When speaking of Jews, we say in English that any particular person keeps or doesn't keep kosher. Do we use the same verb when speaking of Muslims, having to do with whether or not they only eat halal foods? (And why do we use "keep" in this context at all? We don't say people keep vegetarian or keep organic, we say they are vegetarian or they eat vegetarian, organic, etc.)

Comments

[conuly]

I wonder if that's related to Latin capo, capere at all?

Etymology, copied from the OED, which my university library has a subscription to.

[yarrowkat]

Keep, v.
Forms: Past tense and participle kept. Forms: infinitiveOE (ME) cépan, ME kepan, ME -en, (ME -in, ME -yn), ME kep, ME–15 kepe, ME–16 keepe, (15 keype, Sc. keip(e), 15– keep. past tenseOE cépte, ME kepte, (ME kipte), ME– kept; ME keped(e, ME -id, -yd, ME–15 Sc. -it, -yt. past participleME i-kept, ME– kept; 15 Sc. kepit.

Etymology: Late Old English cépan: no related words known in the cognate languages; ulterior etymology unknown. The primary sense in Old English is also difficult to ascertain; the verb appears to have been originally construed with a genitive.

The word probably belonged primarily to the vulgar and non-literary stratum of the language; but it comes up suddenly into literary use c1000, and that in many senses, indicating considerable previous development. The original sense may have been ‘to lay hold’ with the hands, and hence with the attention, ‘to keep an eye upon, watch’. About 1000, it was taken to render Latin observāre (originally ‘to watch, keep an eye upon, take note of’), and its subsequent development seems to have been largely influenced by the senses of this Latin word, nearly all of which it has been used to render. It also renders the simple Latin servāre (originally ‘to watch, observe’), and the compounds conservāre , praeservāre , reservāre . In sense there is also close affinity between keep and hold v. (originally ‘to keep watch over’, ‘keep in charge’): in many uses they are still synonymous, and many phrases which have now the one verb formerly had the other; but in later usage, at least, keep implies the exercise of stronger effort to retain, so that have , hold , keep , form a series, the members of which pass into each other with progressive intensity of action. Hold has moreover often a sense of ‘sustain, support, keep from falling’, not belonging to keep.

If cépan was an old word, it would go back to an Old Germanic *kôpjan ; but no trace of this verb is found elsewhere. Some compare Old English copián (found only once) = Latin ‘compilare ’, and Middle English copnien to watch or wait for; but uncertainty as to the length of the o in these words makes it doubtful whether they belong to the root kôp- . Kluge (Beiträge VIII. 537) has suggested radical connection with Old High German chuofa , Old Low German kôpa cask, coop (as a thing for holding or keeping). The alleged Flemish kepen in Kilian is an error.

Uncertainty as to the original sense makes a historical scheme of the sense-development difficult. In the following, some early (and obsolete) senses are placed first under branch I; branch II has the chief transitive senses, *= ‘pay attention, observe’, **= ‘guard, preserve’, ***= ‘hold in custody’, ****= ‘conduct, carry on’; III the intransitive senses derived from these; IV the combinations with adverbs. Although the four groups under II are distinct enough in the primary and literal senses, the distinction tends to melt away in the figurative uses, and especially in the innumerable phraseological expressions into which keep enters; in several cases these combine the notions of two or more groups. In many phrases, also, the sense of keep is so indefinite and so dependent upon that of the object or complement, as to be scarcely capable of separate analysis; such phrases are treated under the noun or adjective in question: e.g. keep company n., keep watch n., keep close adj.