MEANING
To keep your thoughts, opinions or intentions to yourself rather than sharing them.
Use it for
describing a person who does not reveal opinions; showing reserved participation in a discussion; withholding a personal judgment; portraying quiet self-restraint in conversationDescribes someone withholding personal opinions rather than volunteering their position. Writing functions: Reticence.
Words that belong together
- keep your own counsel on a matter
- keep your own counsel about something
On the page
During the argument, Mara kept her own counsel and listened to both sides.
The minister kept his own counsel about the likely successor.
Word forms
- Base
- keep your own counsel
Usage notes
Verbal idiom: keep/keeps/kept/keeping; possessive changes with the subject: she kept her own counsel. Counsel is singular and does not mean council. Register: neutral. Commonness: common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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