Keep under wraps means to hide or to conceal something from view, to make something secret. It goes further in meaning in that it should not be revealed to anyone at all.
Origin of the idiom ‘keep under wraps’
This would seem to have a literal meaning – to keep something wrapped up, as in a parcel. Another such phrase, meaning the same, is ‘keep it under your hat,’ but the two uses have different origins.
Keeping something ‘under wraps’ doesn’t mean wrapping something up in a parcel, but goes back to the 1890s or even before that. It refers to a horse-racing practice where a jockey slows down a horse by wrapping the reins around his hands, either to avoid tiring the horse or in order to conceal its true racing ability. It was therefore originally used literally – the horse racing reference is what the modern use of the term refers to.
The Blood Horse (a weekly magazine devoted to racing), in its issue of March 11, 1955, stated that the term under wraps was generally used:
“In a literal sense to indicate that the rider had wrapped his reins around his hands in order to obtain sufficient purchase on the leader to restrain the horse from full speed.”
That will allow the horse to save its strength for a sudden burst of energy towards the end of the race, thus taking the other riders by surprise.
The term keep under wraps was used in other sports around the turn of the twentieth century to mean to keep secret. During several decades, keep under wraps became an idiom used in everyday discourse to mean concealing something or making something secret.
Using ‘keep under wraps’
Sentence examples:
“He didn’t want anyone to know that he had been offered the job so he decided to keep it under wraps until he had decided whether to take it.”
“When the minister discovered how many people had been drowned in the flood he decided that to avoid a later scadanl, he would publish the information rather than keep it under wraps.”
“When she became pregnant she decided to keep it under wraps until she had had the appropriate scans.”
“The mobile phone manufacturers kept their product under wraps for months before putting it on the market, for fear of its design being stolen.”
Synonyms for ‘keep it under wraps’
Hidden away
Buttoned-up
Conservative
A covering or cover
Accessible or known to authorized personnel only
Secret
Not spoken of
Keep concealed
Idioms about keeping a secret
- As quiet as a mouse – silent or very quiet
- Behind closed doors – out of sight, in secret, without public knowledge
- Dark horse – a less well-known competitor or candidate who succeeds to an unexpectedly high level
- Fly on the wall – an unnoticed witness
- Like a thief in the night – someone behaving in a secretive manner
- Mum’s the word – an informal request to keep something a secret
- My lips are sealed – I won’t talk about this
- Off the record – not part of an official statement
- On the sly – secretly
- Open secret – something that is supposed to be secret but is actually something that many people know about
- Poker face – an impassive expression, an expression that hides your true feelings
- To bite/hold your tongue – to stop yourself from saying something
- To cover your tracks – to conceal or destroy any evidence of what you have been up to
- To crack – to break under pressure and reveal everything you know
- To dish the dirt – to reveal and spread gossip
- To give the game away – to accidentally reveal a secret
- To keep a low profile – to avoid attracting attention or publicity
- To keep someone/be kept in the dark – to keep someone/be kept uninformed
- To keep something under your hat/under wraps – to keep something a secret
- To leak – to intentionally expose secret information
- To let the cat out of the bag – to accidentally reveal a secret
- To spill the beans – to accidentally reveal a secret
- To sweep something under the rug/carpet – to hide or ignore a problem in the hope that it will go away
- To take the lid off – to expose (usually unwelcome) secrets
- Whistleblower – informant
