Word.ws English Dictionary

holding short

holding short is the present participle and gerund of hold short.

Meaning of hold short

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To wait before entering a runway or a taxiway until given clearance to proceed.
    • Can I cross runway 4L? — No, hold short of 4L for now.

Questions about holding short

What is holding short the present participle and gerund of?
Holding short is the present participle and gerund of hold short.

Words near holding short in the dictionary

  1. holding over
  2. holding over someone's head
  3. holding pattern
  4. holding patterns
  5. holding ransom
  6. holding short
  7. holding someone's feet to the fire
  8. holding someone's hand
  9. holding space
  10. holding stack
  11. holding stacks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holding short (page history and authors); hold short (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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Cite this entry: “holding short.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/holding_short. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.