hold one's tongue

Idioms  

1. Also,. Keep quiet, remain silent, as in If you don't hold your tongue you'll have to go outside, or Jenny kept her peace about the wedding. The idiom with tongue uses hold in the sense of “restrain,” while the others use hold and keep in the sense of “preserve.” Chaucer used the first idiom in The Tale of Melibus (c. 1387): “Thee is better hold thy tongue still, than for to speak.” The variant appears in the traditional wedding service, telling anyone who knows that a marriage should not take place to “speak now or forever hold your peace.” [First half of 1300s] Also see keep quiet.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hold one's tongue

At least this once, one could hold one's tongue.

From Time Magazine Archive

Heaven! sir," said she—"Well, I must not speak, and yet it is certainly very hard to be obliged to hold one's tongue when one hears."—"

From History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Under many circumstances it is not difficult to hold one's tongue.

From How to Study and Teaching How to Study by Frank M. (Frank Morton) McMurry

If after the help one has had from you one can't either take care of one's self or simply hold one's tongue, one must renounce all claim to be an object of interest.

From The Ambassadors by Henry James

But it seemed fatally easy to hold one's tongue.

From Under False Pretences A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

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Related Words

• cut off
• gag
• muffle
• mute
• muzzle
• quash
• quell
• squelch
• stifle
• subdue
• suppress

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