onhold

verb — 2 senses

onhold

verb

Etymology From Middle English anhealden (“to retain”), from Old English onhealdan, anhealdan (“to hold, keep”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian anhoolde (“to stop, persist”), West Frisian oanhâlde (“to apprehend, arrest, detain”), Dutch aanhouden (“to persist, continue, retain”) and onthouden (“to withhold, retain”), German anhalten (“to stop, last, persist”) and enthalten (“to contain, include”). By surface analysis, on- + hold.

1

Dialectal, Poetic, Rare To hold on (to).

  • She leaped and trembled; still onheld his gripe, And gnawed her waning life.1882, Keningale Robert Cook, The king of Kent:
  • Because of economic downturn, I onhold my dream first and use my lovely office's notebook IBM Thinkpad T60P as my best friend.2008, An Apple A day
2

Dialectal, Poetic, Rare To hold on.

  • Resolved, That the Minutes of the Meeting of the Secondary Committee onheld 8 July, 1918, be and they are hereby confirmed.1919, Middlesbrough (England). Education Committee, Proceedings
Derived terms
onholding

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.