hold one's own
hold one's own verb: to demonstrate oneself to be capable; to provide a respectable performance or worthy competition; to stick up for oneself.
Verb
hold one's own (third-person singular simple present holds one's own, present participle holding one's own, simple past and past participle held one's own)
- To demonstrate oneself to be capable; to provide a respectable performance or worthy competition; to stick up for oneself.
- At any rate, he was like John Bull in one respect: he was sturdy and square, and fit to hold his own with any man.1877, R. D. Blackmore, chapter 6, in Erema
- At the receptions […] Antonia could hold her own in a discussion with two or three men at a time.1904 January 29 – October 7, Joseph Conrad, chapter 2, in Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, London; New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], published 1904, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- stand tall
Synonyms of hold one's own
Forms of hold one's own
| third-person singular present | holds one's own |
|---|---|
| present participle | holding one's own |
| past participle | held one's own |
| past | held one's own |
Questions about hold one's own
- What does hold one's own mean?
- Hold one's own means to demonstrate oneself to be capable; to provide a respectable performance or worthy competition; to stick up for oneself.
- What part of speech is hold one's own?
- Hold one's own is a verb.
- What is the past tense of hold one's own?
- The past tense of hold one's own is held one's own.
Words near hold one's own in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hold one's own (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 one's own.ogg.
Cite this entry: “hold one's own.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hold_one%27s_own. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.