ABSTRACT
Lexicographers and etymologists are generally agreed that French and English 'discretion' acquired a new force at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, namely as reserve in matters of speech or the ability to keep a secret. Jonathan Swift's connection between discretion and prudence was in fact a very ancient one, especially in the context of ascetic and moral theology. Though obsolete, the connection between substantival 'discretion' and the activity of separation persisted, even intensified, in sixteenth-century European vernaculars. Alongside the sense of 'discretion' as judgement the word also had a more restricted application to judgement in the field of action: the art of knowing when to act or sally forth and — especially — when to hold back. While the association between discretion and prudence marks the persistence of the older, Cassianic, meaning in the early modern period, a genuinely new emphasis also began to appear: on prudence specifically in matters of speech.
