http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50185837/... e. to keep one's powder dry:
to adopt a practical or realistic policy; to act prudently or cautiously; to be on the alert.
[With allusion to words attributed (apparently originally in quot. 1834) to Oliver Cromwell: ....]
1837 Times 29 July 2/3 Mr W. Taylor..requested all the Radicals to get their batteries fixed, their artillery ready, and keep their powder dry, when down would go the Tories.
1908 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 383/1 In thus keeping his powder dry the bishop acted most wisely, though he himself ascribes the happy result entirely to observance of the other half of Cromwell's maxim.
1931 F. L. ALLEN Only Yesterday ii. 40 An inheritor of Theodore Roosevelt's creed of fearing God and keeping your powder dry.
1968 Listener 27 June 833/3, I seem to have been resigned most of my poetic life to the virtues of keeping one's powder dry rather than trying to fire the big guns.
2005 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 22 Aug. 20 The suicide bombers seem to be less active than usual{em}but that may just be because
they are keeping their powder dry for a post-constitution blitz.
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http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/200...Rest assured that we are not going to see any resolution to this question any time soon. Senator McCain will keep his powder dry until he knows what he is facing off against, and, for the Democrats, they need to decide who is actually going to run against him before they start choosing who will support whoever is running against him.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/articl...If Mr Cameron truly wishes to usher in a new age of social responsibility, he will need to do more than ‘wait and see’. He will need to do what he accuses Mr Brown of ducking - by putting his head above the parapet, and saying what he actually thinks. Is he a liberal Conservative, or is he a Conservative to the core of his being?
With every passing month in which the Tory leader prefers
to keep his powder dry the suspicion grows that
he hopes he can keep dodging this question for ever. He cannot.