Definition
To "keep down interest" means to pay interest periodically as it accrues and falls due, preventing it from accumulating into arrears. The phrase appears as a term of art in legal instruments — particularly mortgages, trust deeds, and settlement documents — where a party is obligated to make regular interest payments on a debt or charge so that the principal obligation is not burdened by unpaid interest building up over time.
The phrase describes an ongoing obligation to stay current on interest, not a duty to clear all past-due interest that may have accumulated since the instrument was originally executed. This distinction is the essential legal content of the term.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No established common usage. "Keep down" in ordinary English means to suppress, restrain, or prevent something from rising or increasing.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Keep down" — to hold in subjection; to prevent from rising or increasing.
The ordinary English sense is close enough to be misleading. A lay reader might assume "keeping down interest" means preventing interest from rising at all — perhaps capping a rate or waiving accumulation. The legal meaning is narrower and more specific: it means actively paying interest as it comes due so that arrears do not accumulate. It is an affirmative payment obligation, not a suppression or limitation on the interest rate itself.
Common Confusion
"Keeping down interest" is sometimes read as equivalent to satisfying all arrears of interest outstanding on a security since its original execution. Black's Law Dictionary expressly rejects this reading. The obligation to keep down interest runs forward from the point the duty is imposed — it requires timely periodic payment going forward, not a retrospective clearance of every unpaid sum that may have accrued since the instrument was first made. A party charged with keeping down interest who has allowed arrears to accumulate before the obligation was imposed is not necessarily required to discharge those earlier arrears unless the instrument expressly says so.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears predominantly in older English and American legal instruments — mortgage deeds, trust settlements, annuity grants, and life interest arrangements — and is now rarely drafted expressly into modern documents. Researchers encountering the phrase in historical conveyancing materials, equity court records, or nineteenth-century trust instruments should treat it as a term of art with a defined and limited scope, not as general language about interest management.
The critical research trap is assuming that a covenant to "keep down interest" on a security imposes a duty to cure all prior arrears. As Black's notes (citing 4 El. & Bl. 211), this is not the case. This distinction would have had practical consequences in equity proceedings where a beneficiary or mortgagor sought to enforce the obligation or where a trustee's liability for breach was being assessed.
Researchers working in estate and trust law, particularly with nineteenth-century English equity materials that have been incorporated into American treatise literature, will encounter this phrase in the context of life tenants' obligations toward remaindermen. A life tenant charged with keeping down interest on an estate debt must pay the interest as it falls due; failure to do so may constitute a breach of duty to the remainderman. The phrase thus connects directly to the broader law of equitable obligations between persons holding successive interests in property.
Because the term carries a precise technical meaning established by case law, researchers should not treat it as interchangeable with phrases like "paying interest," "discharging interest arrears," or "maintaining interest payments" without verifying context.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary is the principal source on this term in the American legal dictionary tradition, and its entry is concise and precise: the phrase means periodic payment of interest as it becomes due and does not extend to clearing accumulated arrears from the date of execution. The single citation to 4 El. & Bl. 211 roots the definition in English Queen's Bench authority from the mid-nineteenth century, reflecting the phrase's origins in English equity and conveyancing practice.
The historical dictionaries do not treat this as a contested or evolving term. Its legal content appears to have been settled relatively early, and no significant doctrinal divergence is flagged across the dictionary literature. The absence of the term from more modern legal dictionaries reflects its decline as an express drafting convention rather than any change in the underlying principle — the obligation to pay interest periodically as it falls due is still legally recognized; the specific phrase "keep down interest" has simply been replaced by more explicit drafting language in contemporary instruments.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase and its authoritative definition originate in English law. American courts applying it in trust and mortgage contexts have generally followed the English understanding. Researchers should verify whether a specific American jurisdiction has addressed the phrase directly, as adoption of the English rule was not always express.