keep to oneself
Idioms-
Also, keep oneself to oneself . Shun the company of others, value one's privacy, as in She kept to herself all morning , or, as Doris Lessing put it in In Pursuit of the English (1960): “She keeps herself to herself so much.” [Late 1600s]
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Refrain from revealing, hold secret, as in He promised to keep the news to himself . Also see the synonym keep under one's hat .
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Indeed, sometimes the sort of thing that might be best kept to oneself.
From BBC
“But still, things of that sort are usually kept to oneself.”
From Project Gutenberg
Or perhaps they had just learned a lesson that Mr. Tale-Yax so clearly had not: better to keep to oneself than to risk the trouble that comes from extending a helping hand.
From New York Times
One should not be an artist save when one absolutely cannot keep to oneself the feeling one has—only when one has too much feeling.
From Project Gutenberg
One could buy expensive digital books which one was allowed to share, quote, or copy for classroom use, and cheaper ones which one had to keep to oneself.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
