Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Land rented or leased from another.
  • noun Legally owned property, such as land, capital, or stocks.
  • noun The collection of books and other reading materials at a library.
  • noun Law The part of a court opinion that announces how the law is being applied to the particular facts of the case and that may establish precedent for future similar cases.
  • noun Sports Illegal use of the arms, hands, body, or playing stick to obstruct the movements of an opponent.
  • adjective Tending to impede or delay progress.
  • adjective Designed for usually short-term storage or retention.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In archery, the short pause after drawing a bow to fix the aim and make ready for loosing the bowstring. See hold, intransitive verb, 6.
  • noun The act of keeping or retaining.
  • noun A tenure.
  • noun That which is held.
  • noun plural Property in general, especially stocks and bonds.
  • noun The burden or chorus of a song.
  • noun That which holds, binds, or influences; hold; influence; power.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act or state of sustaining, grasping, or retaining.
  • noun A tenure; a farm or other estate held of another.
  • noun That which holds, binds, or influences.
  • noun obsolete The burden or chorus of a song.
  • noun (Mus.) a note sustained in one part, while the other parts move.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something that one owns, especially stocks and bonds.
  • noun A determination of law made by a court.
  • noun A tenure; a farm or other estate held of another.
  • noun obsolete That which holds, binds, or influences.
  • noun obsolete The burden or chorus of a song.
  • verb Present participle of hold.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of retaining something
  • noun something owned; any tangible or intangible possession that is owned by someone

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word holding.

Examples

  • He was holding court it was really the only time I've seen anyone do the thing we mean by the phrase "holding court" in what may or may not have been his real apartment, clearly loving the attention.

    Sean Carman: Saint Christopher Sean Carman 2011

  • He was holding court it was really the only time I've seen anyone do the thing we mean by the phrase "holding court" in what may or may not have been his real apartment, clearly loving the attention.

    Sean Carman: Saint Christopher Sean Carman 2011

  • He was holding court it was really the only time I've seen anyone do the thing we mean by the phrase "holding court" in what may or may not have been his real apartment, clearly loving the attention.

    Sean Carman: Saint Christopher Sean Carman 2011

  • The design of the distribution system within the tertiary command is influenced by the size of holdings (the term holding is used in the sense of a contiguous area farmed as a unit), as well as by the type of crop being grown, particularly the extent of paddy.

    Chapter 10 1995

  • He was holding court it was really the only time I've seen anyone do the thing we mean by the phrase "holding court" in what may or may not have been his real apartment, clearly loving the attention.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Sean Carman 2011

  • The teabagger view of Massa's Town Hall Phillip Dampier: More importantly, Randy Kuhl ended his term holding town hall meetings in a back room, where ...

    rochesterturning.com 2009

  • If they were car companies, their future would probably look something like that of Mercedes: a famous label holding its own in a high-end but small niche.

    The Mercedes Model 2007

  • Friday, 478 U.S. 385 1986, which they characterize as holding that the clock on the statute of limitations begins running anew "with each disparate paycheck even if the disparity arose out of discriminatory pay decisions made years earlier."

    "Pay is a complicated thing." Ann Althouse 2006

  • The various protest groups are infuriated over what they call their holding pen, a fenced in area across the street from the Fleet Center.

    CNN Transcript Jul 24, 2004 2004

  • The various protest groups are infuriated over what they call their holding pen, a fenced-in area across the street from the FleetCenter.

    CNN Transcript Jul 23, 2004 2004

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.