From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishkeep up appearanceskeep up appearancesPRETENDto dress and behave in the way in which people expect you to, especially to hide your true situation She just wanted to keep up appearances for the kids. → appearance
Examples from the Corpus
keep up appearances• For now, I can keep up appearances and still go to the same restaurants as my friends.• A travel iron is useful for keeping up appearances on holiday.• All my efforts were concentrated on keeping up appearances during those two hours of the day when I was with them.• Sometimes a mood, or a phase of the menstrual cycle, will bring about a definite aversion to keeping up appearances.• We all have to keep up appearances while we wait for the tide to turn.• They spend all they have to keep up appearances.• She put Christmas decorations in the window just to keep up appearances.• Man on the move Everything a man need to keep up appearances while he's away from home.• He still took care to be rude and truculent at school to keep up appearances, but the old venom had faded.• Of course, he tries to keep up appearances, but he lives entirely off borrowed money.• She just wanted to keep up appearances for the kids. 