Word.ws English Dictionary

holding one's nose up

holding one's nose up is the present participle and gerund of hold one's nose up.

Meaning of hold one's nose up

Verb

hold one's nose up (third-person singular simple present holds one's nose up, present participle holding one's nose up, simple past and past participle held one's nose up)

  1. To be disdainful or dismissive towards something.
    • The era of the "church-basement liberal" is over. Those who sit around meeting in the church basements of Cambridge, holding their noses up at the prospect of supporting candidates who don't agree with every last one of their issues, had exactly zero influence in this year's critical elections.1990 December 9, Richard Braun, “A Whole New Day For The Party: Giving Us A Voice”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 21, page 5

Questions about holding one's nose up

What is holding one's nose up the present participle and gerund of?
Holding one's nose up is the present participle and gerund of hold one's nose up.

Words near holding one's nose up in the dictionary

  1. holding one's horses
  2. holding one's jaw
  3. holding one's liquor
  4. holding one's nerve
  5. holding one's nose
  6. holding one's nose up
  7. holding one's own
  8. holding one's peace
  9. holding one's pee
  10. holding one's piss
  11. holding one's tongue

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holding one's nose up (page history and authors); hold one's nose up (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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