keep one's own counsel

English

Verb

keep one's own counsel (third-person singular simple present keeps one's own counsel, present participle keeping one's own counsel, simple past and past participle kept one's own counsel)

1. To keep one's own business private; to be discreet, careful, or circumspect in what one says concerning one's own thoughts, deeds, or situation.

   Synonyms: keep one's cards close to one's chest, keep one's lips sealed, keep one's mouth shut

   • 1853 January, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Cloud”, in Villette. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 256:

     Who wills, may keep his own counsel—be his own secret's sovereign.

   • 1915 December 4 – 1916 January 8, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XX, in The Son of Tarzan, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published March 1917, →OCLC, page 291:

     She kept her own counsel however, planning to escape at the first opportunity when she might have a sufficient start of her captor, as she now considered him, to give her some assurance of outdistancing him.

   • 2002 October 11, Verlyn Klinkenborg, “Editorial Observer: Moral Perfection and the Incorrigible Franklin”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 Oct. 2008:

     The compressed lips suggest his principled reticence, his practice of keeping his own counsel.

See also

• keep one's counsel