Meaning & use
just keep trucking
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Meaning
phrasefixed phraseinformalfigurative
Used to encourage someone to keep going steadily and not give up when things are hard.
Grammar: Followed by nothing, or by 'through something': 'Just keep trucking through the tough weeks.'
Patterns
- just keep trucking
- keep trucking through something
- keep trucking on
The business lost money for a year, but they just kept trucking.
When your studies feel endless, just keep trucking and trust the process.
She kept trucking through the injury and finished the season.
Common combinations
- just keep trucking
- Don't look at the whole mountain; just keep trucking.
- keep trucking through something
- We kept trucking through the busy season.
- keep on trucking
- The old song says to keep on trucking.
- keep trucking along
- Sales are slow, but we keep trucking along.
Synonyms and how they differ
- keep going
- The neutral, all-purpose version; it fits both speech and writing, while 'keep trucking' sounds more casual and upbeat.
- persevere
- Formal and serious: it stresses effort over a long time and suits reports, not friendly chat.
- hang in there
- Also informal encouragement, but it suggests waiting out a hard moment rather than steadily working on.
Opposites
Word family
- truck verb
- To drive a truck, or (informal, American) to move steadily onward.
- trucker noun
- A person who drives a truck for a living.
Commonly confused: just keep trucking or keep on truckin'?
just keep trucking vs keep on truckin'
The same phrase in an older, slangy spelling with a dropped g; it comes from a famous cartoon and sounds dated or humorous today.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses the phrase correctly.
Choose one answer.
The phrase means to continue steadily, often with 'through' plus a difficulty. The other options treat 'truck' as literal driving or as a verb with a direct object, which the idiom does not take.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “just keep trucking”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.