hold out

• “The Emperor and his advisers decided to go and besiege the Sultan in the castle of Emessa, for they supposed that he could scarcely hold out long, seeing the number of followers that he had lost.”

  The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville

• “All I know of the matter is — when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out — a wise, aye, and a discreet — taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wit and the judgment”

  The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

• “Platoon of November Company, nor the two Leopards of 2 Troop, B Squadron RCD could hold out much longer where they were.”

  First Clash

• “I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand.”

  Jane Eyre: an autobiography, Vol. I.

• “As to their farming he says: "Having laid out their estate upon cattle at 5 to 20 pound a cow, when they came to winter them with inland hay, and feed upon such wild fother as was never cut before, they could not hold out the winter, but, ordinarily the first or second year after their coming up to a new plantation, many of their cattle died.”

  A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

• “He was still slightly dazed by this discovery and all it conveyed when he came at last before Miss Evadne, who released her guest-of-honour to hold out the wrong hand to him.”

  More Work for the Undertaker

• “NATALYA PETROVNA [tries to hold out her hand to VERA but lets it fall on her lap].”

  A Month in the Country

• “Situation in Iserlohn hopeless — awaiting further orders — will try to hold out until morning.”

  Panzer Aces

• “When men struggle ceaselessly with death and have to hold out for weeks without rest in mud-filled shell holes, sometimes with the worst possible food, the vacillating soldier cannot be held in line by threatening him with prison or even the workhouse, but only by ruthless application of the death penalty.”

  Mein Kampf

• “Mr. Robinson undertakes it will hold out that Qty, & believes within the Bounds there will be found a hundred or two hundred”

  Letter from Robert Carter to [George Braxton,] November 20, 1729

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