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keeps one's counsel

keeps one's counsel is the third-person singular simple present indicative of keep one's counsel.

Meaning of keep one's counsel

Verb

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

  1. To keep one's own business private; to be careful, circumspect, or discreet in what one says concerning one's own deeds, situation, or thoughts.
    • As he held his mother to him, he longed to tell her all, but he kept his counsel.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Contains both Love and War”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 56
  2. To keep a secret for someone else; to be careful, circumspect, or discreet in what one says concerning someone else's deeds, situation, or thoughts.
    • Standish will keep our counsel, and the news will be old before it's known.1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XLIX, in Middlemarch […], volume III, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book V, page 105

Questions about keeps one's counsel

What is keeps one's counsel the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Keeps one's counsel is the third-person singular simple present indicative of keep one's counsel.

Words near keeps one's counsel in the dictionary

  1. keeps one's breath to cool one's porridge
  2. keeps one's cards close to one's chest
  3. keeps one's chapels
  4. keeps one's chin up
  5. keeps one's cool
  6. keeps one's counsel
  7. keeps one's countenance
  8. keeps one's distance
  9. keeps one's ears open
  10. keeps one's end up
  11. keeps one's eye on the ball

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keeps one's counsel (page history and authors); keep one's counsel (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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