Keep
Keep verb - To mark with an appropriate practice, rite, or ceremony.
Pull strings is an antonym for keep.
Pull strings
Pull strings verb - Influence or control shrewdly or deviously.
Both terms in one sentence
- The prisoners count him as an ally (he's in on it, though he wishes he wasn't) and have to pull strings to keep him around.
Source: Ultimate Job Security - He turns out in a season five two-parter to be a CIA black ops guy who never made contact to keep Castle's family safe, though he did once pull strings for his son when Castle wanted to get one of the Derrick Storm novels Backed by the Pentagon.
Source: Heroic Bastard - He was using family connections to keep his cushy Tokyo posting until he ticked off the wrong person at the wrong time and got sent to the 4077th, and spent most of the rest of the show trying to pull strings and get back to a nice safe clean Tokyo hospital.
Source: Soldiers at the Rear
Cite this Source
Pull strings and Keep. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 21, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/keep/pull_strings
Keep & Pull strings. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/keep/pull_strings>.
Pull strings or Keep. 2016. Accessed July 21, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/keep/pull_strings.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "keep" and "pull strings" have occurred on timeline