Word.ws English Dictionary

holding one's tongue

holding one's tongue is the present participle and gerund of hold one's tongue.

Meaning of hold one's tongue

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.

Questions about holding one's tongue

What is holding one's tongue the present participle and gerund of?
Holding one's tongue is the present participle and gerund of hold one's tongue.

Words near holding one's tongue in the dictionary

  1. holding one's nose up
  2. holding one's own
  3. holding one's peace
  4. holding one's pee
  5. holding one's piss
  6. holding one's tongue
  7. holding one's water
  8. holding oneself together
  9. holding onto
  10. holding out
  11. holding over

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holding one's tongue (page history and authors); 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.

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