keep the home fires burning
English
Etymology
A reference to keeping campfires, lights, etc. at one's home village burning, often while part of the population travels elsewhere to hunt, etc.
Verb
keep the home fires burning
- (idiomatic, colloquial) To maintain daily routine and provide the necessities of life in a home or community.
- 1881, Andrew Jackson Davis, The genesis and ethics of conjugal love, page 115:
- We got our water from a pump in the backyard and there is no domestic fatigue indoors or out-of-doors that I have not done continuously, not for fun but to keep the home fires burning.
- 2005, Karen Houppert, Home fires burning: married to the military, for better or worse, →ISBN, page xix:
- While the military has moved to gender-neutral language in all its official descriptions of the "spouses" who keep the home fires burning during deployments ...
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