secret keeping
Not telling anyone
Secret keeping is the practice of withholding information from others, whether to protect privacy, maintain trust, or conceal something harmful.
Children learn secret keeping as a social skill—knowing what to share and with whom.
The phrase often appears in discussions of relationships and psychology: Secret keeping can erode intimacy over time.
Good secret keeping may be loyalty; bad secret keeping may be deception.
- confidentialMeant to stay secret
- need to knowRestricted information access basis
- hushAbsence of sound
- hush hushExtremely secret, concealed
- whisperSpeech without full voice
vault · trust · silence · discretion · classified · hidden · locked · private · off the record · oath · pinky promise · sworn · tight-lipped · closeted · behind closed doors · buried · skeleton in closet · concealed
- privacyprivacy, private, seclusion, confidentiality, solitude
- secretsconfidential, classified, confidentiality, redacted, privacy
- teen behavioreye rolling, back talk, backtalk, door slamming, moodiness
- keeping thingsrecordkeeping, bookkeeping, housekeeping, timekeeping, scorekeeping
- betrayalsbackstabbing, cheating, disloyalty, double-crossing, infidelity
- introversionintroversion, solitude, alone time, isolation, loner
secret keepingdisclosure
Act of revealing information
exposing · divulging · leaking · spilling the beans · letting the cat out of the bag
secret keepingoversharing
Revealing too much personally
loose-lipped · motor mouth · forthrightness · blabbering · indiscreet
secret, keeping, secrets, secretly, secrecy, secretive, secretively, secretiveness, secretary