Word.ws English Dictionary

hold off

hold off verb: to delay (someone or something) temporarily; to keep at bay.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To delay (someone or something) temporarily; to keep at bay.
    • Let's try to hold off the lawyers until we are ready for them.
    • The breakthrough came after 63 minutes as United’s unorthodox defence desperately tried to hold off a spell of sustained pressure.2014 November 2, Daniel Taylor, “Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United”, in guardian.co.uk
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive, transitive) To delay commencing (an action until some specified time or event has passed).
    • Hold off (on) the decision one more day so I can answer your question.
    • Hold off (on) baking until I get there.

hold off meaning in Bengali and Malayalam

hold off in Bengali

দূরে রাখা

hold off in Malayalam

stay away, keep off, not come
ഒഴിഞ്ഞുനില്ക്കുക, മാറിനില്ക്കുക, വിട്ടുനില്ക്കുക, വരാതിരിക്കുക, ഉണ്ടാകാതിരിക്കുക, പ്രത്യക്ഷപ്പെടാതിരിക്കുക

Synonyms of hold off

Forms of hold off

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

Words formed from hold off

Questions about hold off

What does hold off mean?
Hold off means to delay (someone or something) temporarily; to keep at bay.
What is hold off in Bengali?
Hold off in Bengali is দূরে রাখা. See Hold off meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is hold off?
Hold off is a verb.
What is the past tense of hold off?
The past tense of hold off is held off.

Words near hold off in the dictionary

  1. hold it in
  2. hold it together
  3. hold luggage
  4. hold my beer
  5. hold my milk
  6. hold off
  7. hold on
  8. hold on to your hat
  9. hold one's alcohol
  10. hold one's breath
  11. hold one's drink

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold off (page history and authors); hold off (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hold off (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-hold off.ogg.

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