Word.ws English Dictionary

beholden

Syllables: be·hol·denUK/bɪˈhəʊldən/US/bɪˈhoʊldən/

beholden adjective: obligated to provide, display, or do something for another; indebted, obliged for a bounden duty.

Adjective

beholden (not comparable)

  1. (usually) Obligated to provide, display, or do something for another; indebted, obliged for a bounden duty.
    • From an early age, I had decided I wanted to be beholden to no one.
    • But musical ancestry aside, the influence to which [Justin] Bieber is most beholden is the current trends in pop music, which means Believe is loaded up with EDM accouterments, seeking a comfortable middle ground where Bieber’s impressively refined pop-R&B croon can rub up on techno blasts and...2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 06 Aug 2020

beholden meaning in Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam

beholden in Hindi

obligated, bound by moral obligation
बाध्य bādhya

beholden in Urdu

beholden, indebted
احسان مند ehsān maṉd

beholden in Malayalam

in someone's debt, indebted, obligated
കടപ്പാടുള്ള, കടപ്പെട്ട, കടപ്പാടോടുകൂടിയ, ഋണബദ്ധനായ, അനുബദ്ധ, ഋണബദ്ധ

Forms of beholden

alternative formbeholding

Origin of beholden

From Middle English biholden (“beholden, obligated”), past participle of biholden (“to behold, look at”, modern behold), though that verb does not mean "to bind, obligate".

Words formed from beholden

Words that rhyme with beholden

Questions about beholden

What does beholden mean?
Beholden means obligated to provide, display, or do something for another; indebted, obliged for a bounden duty.
What is beholden in Hindi?
Beholden in Hindi is बाध्य (bādhya). See Beholden meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is beholden?
Beholden is an adjective.
How do you pronounce beholden?
Beholden is pronounced /bɪˈhəʊldən/ (UK).

Words near beholden in the dictionary

  1. Behns
  2. behoite
  3. behold
  4. beholdable
  5. beholde
  6. beholden
  7. beholdenness
  8. beholder
  9. beholders
  10. beholdest
  11. beholdeth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beholden (page history and authors); احسان مند (Urdu) (page history and authors); beholden (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-beholden.ogg.

Cite this entry: “beholden.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beholden. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.