Word.ws English Dictionary

holt

/hɒlt/US/hoʊlt/

holt noun: a small piece of woodland or a woody hill; a copse.

Noun

holt (plural holts)

  1. A small piece of woodland or a woody hill; a copse.
    • As over Holt and Heath, as thorough Frith and Fell;1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 11 p. 174
    • [the gale] 'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger.1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XXXI, line 5
  2. The lair of an animal, especially of an otter.
    • Where the river begins to slow, at the beginning of the pool, its left bank is bound by the open roots of oak, ash, alder, and sycamore. To hunted otters these trees offered holding as secure as any in the country of the Two Rivers. Harper, the aged hound—he was fourteen years old—knew every holt...1927, Henry William Williamson, Tarka the Otter, Chapter 19

Proper noun capitalized: Holt

Holt (countable and uncountable, plural Holts)

  1. A surname An English and north-west European topographic surname for someone who lived by a small wood.
  2. A village and civil parish in Dorset, England, previously in East Dorset district (OS grid ref SU0203).
  3. A suburb of the town of Hook, Hart district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU7354).
  4. A market town and civil parish with a town council in North Norfolk district, Norfolk, England (OS grid ref TG0738).
  5. A village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England (OS grid ref ST8662).
  6. A village and civil parish in Malvern Hills district, Worcestershire, England (OS grid ref SO8262).
  7. A village and community in Wrexham borough county borough, Wales, on the River Dee, the border with England (OS grid SJ4153).
  8. An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama.
  9. An unincorporated community in San Joaquin County, California.
  10. An unincorporated community in Okaloosa County, Florida.
  11. A township in Taylor County, Iowa.
  12. An unincorporated community in Breckinridge County, Kentucky.
Show 17 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. An unincorporated community in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
  2. An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Ingham County, Michigan.
  3. A township in Fillmore County, Minnesota.
  4. A minor city in Marshall County, Minnesota.
  5. A township in Marshall County, Minnesota.
  6. A minor city in Clay County and Clinton County, Missouri.
  7. A township in Gage County, Nebraska.
  8. A former township in Adams County, North Dakota, now part of Central Adams, North Dakota.
  9. An unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Ohio.
  10. An unincorporated community in the town of Franzen, Marathon County, Wisconsin.
  11. A village in East Gwillimbury, Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada.
  12. A municipality in Schleswig-Flensburg district, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
  13. A hamlet in Overijssel, Netherlands; see Dutch Holt.
  14. A village in Tvedestrand municipality, Agder, Norway.
  15. A village in Letea Veche, Bacău County, Romania.
  16. A suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, named after PM Harold Holt.
  17. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Holt County.

Forms of holt

Noun
pluralholts
alternative form (obsolete)hoult
Proper noun
pluralHolts

Plural of holt: holts

Origin of holt

From Middle English holt, from Old English holt (“forest, wood, grove, thicket; wood, timber”), from Proto-West Germanic *holt, from Proto-Germanic *hultą (“wood”), from Proto-Indo-European *kald-, *klād- (“timber, log”), perhaps corresponding to a root noun *kél(h₂)d ~ *kól(h₂)d ~ *kl̥(h₂)d- (literally “chopped (wood)”), from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₂-, *kleh₂- (“to beat, hew, break, destroy, kill”). Cognate with Scots holt (“a wood, copse, thicket”), North Frisian holt (“wood, timber”), West Frisian hout (“timber, wood”), Dutch hout (“wood, timber”), German Holz (“wood”), Icelandic holt (“woodland, hillock”), Old Irish caill (“forest, wood, woodland”), Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos, “branch, shoot, twig”), Slovene kol (“stake”), Albanian shul (“door latch”). Doublet of hout. See also clade and cladus, possible doublets via Proto-Indo-European.

English, Dutch, north German, Norwegian and Danish surname, all from the noun holt (“copse, woodland”).

Words formed from holt

Words that rhyme with holt

Questions about holt

What does holt mean?
Holt means a small piece of woodland or a woody hill; a copse.
What part of speech is holt?
Holt can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce holt?
Holt is pronounced /hɒlt/ (UK).
What is the plural of holt?
The plural of holt is holts.

Words near holt in the dictionary

  1. Holstons
  2. Holsworth
  3. Holsworths
  4. Holsworthy
  5. Holsworthy Hamlets
  6. holt
  7. Holt County
  8. Holt-Oram syndrome
  9. Holtan
  10. Holtans
  11. Holtby

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holt (page history and authors); Holt (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-holt.wav.

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