Word.ws English Dictionary

hold one's tongue

hold one's tongue verb: to refrain from talking about something.

Verb

hold one's tongue (third-person singular simple present holds one's tongue, present participle holding one's tongue, simple past and past participle held one's tongue)

  1. (idiomatic) To refrain from talking about something.
    • I don't like his political ideas, but I will hold my tongue.
    • “Hold your tongue, beadle,” said the second old gentleman, when Mr. Bumble had given vent to this compound adjective.
      “I beg your worship’s pardon,” said Mr. Bumble, incredulous of his having heard aright,—“did your worship speak to me?”
      “Yes—hold your tongue.”1837 March, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Relates How Oliver Twist Was Very Near Getting a Place, Which Would Not Have Been a Sinecure”, in Oliver Twist; […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley...

hold one's tongue meaning in Arabic

hold one's tongue in Arabic

refrain from talking about something — see also shut up
صَمَتَ ṣamata

Forms of hold one's tongue

third-person singular presentholds one's tongue
present participleholding one's tongue
past participleheld one's tongue
pastheld one's tongue

Questions about hold one's tongue

What does hold one's tongue mean?
Hold one's tongue means to refrain from talking about something.
What is hold one's tongue in Arabic?
Hold one's tongue in Arabic is صَمَتَ (ṣamata). See Hold one's tongue meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is hold one's tongue?
Hold one's tongue is a verb.
What is the past tense of hold one's tongue?
The past tense of hold one's tongue is held one's tongue.

Words near hold one's tongue in the dictionary

  1. hold one's own
  2. hold one's peace
  3. hold one's pee
  4. hold one's piece
  5. hold one's piss
  6. hold one's tongue
  7. hold one's water
  8. hold oneself together
  9. hold onto
  10. hold onto your hat
  11. hold out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hold one's tongue.ogg.

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