Word.ws English Dictionary

guarding one's tongue

guarding one's tongue is the present participle and gerund of guard one's tongue.

Meaning of guard one's tongue

Verb

guard one's tongue (third-person singular simple present guards one's tongue, present participle guarding one's tongue, simple past and past participle guarded one's tongue)

  1. To be careful in what one says; to avoid divulging information or speaking in a way considered to be inappropriate or offensive.
    • […] though I scorn to guard my Tongue, as hoping ’twill never offend willingly; yet I can, with much adoe, hold it, when I have a great mind to say a thousand things I know will be taken in an ill sence.1696, Aphra Behn, “Love-Letters to a Gentleman,” Letter 3, in All the Histories and Novels Written by the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn, London: Samuel Briscoe, p. 47

Questions about guarding one's tongue

What is guarding one's tongue the present participle and gerund of?
Guarding one's tongue is the present participle and gerund of guard one's tongue.

Words near guarding one's tongue in the dictionary

  1. Guardias
  2. guardienne
  3. guardiennes
  4. guarding
  5. guarding against
  6. guarding one's tongue
  7. guarding post
  8. guarding posts
  9. guardingly
  10. guardings
  11. Guardino

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: guarding one's tongue (page history and authors); guard one's tongue (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “guarding one's tongue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guarding_one%27s_tongue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.