on the qui vive

1. 1.

   lively attentiveness

   Synonymsalertnesssharp-sightedness

   Broaderattentiveness

Questions about on the qui vive

What does on the qui vive mean?

on the qui vive means "lively attentiveness".

What is another word for on the qui vive?

Close synonyms include alertness, sharp-sightedness. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is on the qui vive a common word?

on the qui vive is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.