noun [U]
1 the freedom or power to decide what should be done in a particular situation:
I'll leave it up to you to use your discretion. * How much to tell terminally ill patients is left to the discretion of the doctor.
2 care in what you say or do, in order to keep sth secret or to avoid causing embarrassment or difficulty for sb; the quality of being DISCREET:
This is confidential, but I know that I can rely on your discretion. * Jane is the soul of discretion (= you can trust her). * Use the utmost discretion when you talk to her.
compareINDISCRETION
IDIOMS
at sb's discretion according to what sb decides or wishes to do:
Bail is granted at the discretion of the court. * There is no service charge and tipping is at your discretion.
discretion is the better part of valour (saying) you should avoid danger and not take unnecessary risks
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of discretion come from?
This entry for discretion is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Does discretion appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — discretion appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
