keep one's own counsel

1. Say little or nothing about one's opinions or intentions. For example, Betty is notorious for keeping her own counsel; you never know what she really thinks. This expression employs counsel in the sense of “a secret,” a usage dating from about 1300.

Example Sentences

In the expressions to keep a secret, keep one's own counsel, keep faith, or keep the faith, such words as preserve or maintain could not be substituted without loss.

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Is one’s life a lie because one makes so bold as to keep one’s own counsel?

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I did not let the courier know how much I was interested in his errand, for experience had taught me how wise it was, in the affairs of life to keep one's own counsel; and, therefore, I pretended ignorance of even the existence of such a person.

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There is always some clerk who knows the forms, and with those, and looking for what one wants upon the spur of the occasion in books and pamphlets, and so forth, one may go on very well—if one does but know how to keep one's own counsel.

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