Reader rebcake had a question about two venerable idioms concerning speaking out—or not. Is it proper to say “hold your peace," or is it “hold your piece"? What about “say your piece"—or “say your peace"? We’ll take a closer look with the help of old friends from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

The first expression is, in fact, hold your peace. It’s come to mean don’t argue or perhaps even shut up:

“Wizard or no, you can’t speak to Mr. Frodo that way!" said Sam. “I have to say it! I don’t care, even if you turn me into a toad!"

“Hold your peace, Master Samwise," said Gandalf, and though his look was fierce, his tone was amiable.

The phrase was present in English by the 17th century: as one example, the King James version of the Bible gives Exodus 14:14 as “The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." A glance at the site Biblehub shows that various translators had their own ideas about what exactly the original Hebrew words meant in this case: in place of “hold your peace," you can see alternatives ranging from “keep still" to “be silent."

By the early 19th century, the expression sounded old-fashioned enough that Sir Walter Scott uses it as part of his deliberately archaic dialog in Ivanhoe:

"Hold thy peace, Wamba," said Gurth; "it may all be as thou dost guess."

On the other hand, our second idiom is correctly say your piece:

Several times, Pippin started to speak to Gandalf, and several times he thought better of it and turned back to his dinner. At last, the wizard left off his brooding into the fire and addressed the young hobbit directly: “Say your piece, young Master Took. I doubt either of us will get any rest until you do."

In this case, piece means a deliberate utterance, often something learned by heart for recitation. The same expression has also been used for short musical works: people may speak of violin pieces or piano pieces. Gandalf knows that Pippin has something specific to say and is urging him to come out with it. In more recent times, it’s come to imply that the piece will be the speaker’s opinion—which is rather different from the earlier meaning, where the piece in question might well be someone else’s speech or poem.

One way to remember which peace /piece to use in which expression has to do with the various translations of hold your peace that were mentioned earlier. In this expression, peace is related to stillness and silence, but the word piece has nothing to do with these concepts. Instead, for our second saying, you might think of giving someone a piece of your mind.