Word.ws English Dictionary

hold down

hold down verb: to restrain; to check.

Verb

hold down (third-person singular simple present holds down, present participle holding down, simple past and past participle held down)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To restrain; to check.
    • Please hold the noise down.
    • You hold him down while I search him.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To continue, to hold and to manage well; to keep; maintain; support.
    • I held down that job for years.
    • Thank you to everyone who's been holding us down while we've been going through this difficult time.

Synonyms of hold down

26 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of hold down

third-person singular presentholds down
present participleholding down
past participleheld down
pastheld down

Questions about hold down

What does hold down mean?
Hold down means to restrain; to check.
What part of speech is hold down?
Hold down is a verb.
What is the past tense of hold down?
The past tense of hold down is held down.

Words near hold down in the dictionary

  1. hold by the button
  2. hold cheap
  3. hold come what may
  4. hold court
  5. hold dear
  6. hold down
  7. hold down the fort
  8. hold fast
  9. hold fire
  10. hold firm
  11. hold for ransom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold down (page history and authors). 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.

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

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