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

But then, at such a place as Littlebath, one would have to hold one's tongue altogether.

From The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope

Oh, there's plenty of mystery about it all; and, once more, it's better to hold one's tongue!

From The Secret of Sarek by Maurice Leblanc

This answer incensed me greatly, for I had not yet learnt that one of the chief conditions of "comme il faut"-ness was to hold one's tongue about the labour by which it had been acquired.

From Youth by C. J. Hogarth

Related Words

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