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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

True, one must be able to hold one's tongue when necessary, and Mrs. Paaschen, who is so inquisitive, is really not at all according to my taste.

From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 by Various

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 James, Henry

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 Hogarth, C. J.

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

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

Related Words

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