hold the line
hold the line verb: to firmly maintain one's viewpoint, principles, or situation; to refuse to change one's practices or plans.
Verb
hold the line (third-person singular simple present holds the line, present participle holding the line, simple past and past participle held the line)
- To firmly maintain one's viewpoint, principles, or situation; to refuse to change one's practices or plans.
- The UN General Assembly was expected to hold the line again today against seating Red China.1966 November 29, “UN Expected To Hold Line On Red China”, in The Robesonian, USA, retrieved 29 Aug 2012, page 1
- The quarterly survey . . . said banks were holding the line on lending standards for commercial loans and were more willing to lend to individuals.1992 December 9, “Business Loans Up”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 Aug 2012
Forms of hold the line
| third-person singular present | holds the line |
|---|---|
| present participle | holding the line |
| past participle | held the line |
| past | held the line |
Origin of hold the line
Probably an allusion to a line of soldiers remaining steadfastly in position during combat.
Questions about hold the line
- What does hold the line mean?
- Hold the line means to firmly maintain one's viewpoint, principles, or situation; to refuse to change one's practices or plans.
- What part of speech is hold the line?
- Hold the line is a verb.
- What is the past tense of hold the line?
- The past tense of hold the line is held the line.
Words near hold the line in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hold the line (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 the line.ogg.
Cite this entry: “hold the line.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hold_the_line. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.