To carry on is to keep going without stopping. Whatever happened, the thing continues.
It is the everyday British phrase where continue would sound formal, and the wartime poster telling people to keep calm and carry on has made it internationally famous. It takes with. There are two other senses worth knowing: carrying on about something means complaining at length, and carrying on with somebody is an old-fashioned way of describing an affair. Carry-on luggage is what you take onto a plane.
1phrasecarry onTo continue doing something.
“Just carry on as though nothing had happened.”
2phrasecomplainTo complain or behave in an agitated way.
“He does carry on about the parking.”
Also accepted in games: continue
Equivalent to carry onward.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Phrasal Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.
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