keep one's own counsel

present singular third person keeps one's own counsel · participle present keeping one's own counsel · participle past kept one's own counsel · past 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.

   Near-synonyms: keep one's cards close to one's chest, keep it in the family, keep one's mouth shut; see also Thesaurus:be quiet

   3 more examples

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

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

   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.

   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

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

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

   Synonyms: keep counsel, keep one's counsel, keep one's cards close to one's chest, keep it in the family, keep one's mouth shut