hold
/hoʊld/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.19 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Hold the pencil like this."
- "But then I had the flintlock by me for protection. ¶ There were giants in the days when that gun was made; for surely no modern mortal could have held that mass of metal steady to his shoulder. The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window[…]."
- "The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking."
- "The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,[…]. Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read."
- "This package holds six bottles."
- "Hold my coat for me."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *haldaną Proto-West Germanic *haldan Old English healdan Middle English holden English hold Derived from Middle English holden, derived from Old English healdan, derived from Proto-West Germanic *haldan, derived from Proto-Germanic *haldaną (“to tend, herd”), maybe derived from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to drive”). Doublet of halt. Cognates *West Frisian hâlde *Low German holden, holen *Dutch houden *German halten *Danish *Norwegian Bokmål holde *Norwegian Nynorsk halda. Compare Latin celer (“quick”), Tocharian B käl- (“to goad, drive”), Ancient Greek κέλλω (kéllō, “to drive”), Sanskrit कलयति (kalayati, “to impel”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /hoʊld/
- British English: /həʊld/
Usage
Inflected Forms
holds (present, singular)
holding (participle, present)
held (past)
held (participle, past)
holden (archaic, participle)
holds (plural)
more hold (comparative)
most hold (superlative)