to keep one's cakehole shut
- idiom
- Offensive
- They begged him to keep his cakehole shut about the party.
Examples
-
Just keep your cakehole shut for a while!
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She had to keep her cakehole shut or risk offending her boss.
-
If you can't keep your cakehole shut, you'll ruin the whole plan.
-
Sometimes it's best to keep one's cakehole shut.
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If you can't keep your cakehole shut, you'll ruin the whole plan.
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Sometimes it's best to keep one's cakehole shut to avoid unnecessary conflict.
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She decided to keep her cakehole shut during the meeting to avoid drawing attention.
Synonyms
116
5.6
To say nothing to avoid trouble or keep a secret
90
2.5
To say nothing or not tell a secret
5
8.2
Keep quiet about a secret
4
4.4
To stop talking to keep a secret or when told to be quiet
3
7.5
Stay quiet about something private
1
9.9
To stay silent on purpose to avoid trouble
To keep quiet and not tell others about something
To keep quiet on purpose and not tell others
To tell someone rudely to be quiet
Antonyms
How Silent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'keep' (remain), 'cakehole' (informal 'mouth') and 'shut' (closed) yields the literal idea of keeping one's mouth closed, i.e. being silent. Although 'cakehole' is slang, the construction 'keep one's X shut' is a common, compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would understand the idiom.
Etymology
Keep one's cakehole shut comes from the funny image of the mouth as a cakehole, like having cake in your mouth and keeping it closed so nothing comes out. So it means 'to stop talking' or 'remain silent'.