Word.ws English Dictionary

holup

holup is the abbreviation of hold up.

Meaning of hold up

Verb

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

  1. (informal, intransitive) To wait or delay.
    • Hold up a minute. I want to check something.
    Synonyms:
    hold on, hang on
  2. (transitive) To impede; detain.
    • I've got to get to work now. Why are you holding me up?
    1. (idiomatic, transitive) To detain by threatening, usually with a weapon, in order to commit robbery.
      • The guy tried to hold up a bank.
  3. (transitive) To support or lift.
    • Hold up the table while I slide this underneath.
    1. (figuratively, transitive) To highlight, as if lifting up for display.
      • His lectures held up Napoleon as an example of the phenomenon.
    2. (idiomatic, transitive) To fulfil or complete one's part of an agreement.
      • I don't think he's holding up his end of the bargain.

See all 10 meanings of hold up

Forms of holup

third-person singular presentholups
present participleholuping
past participleholuped
pastholuped

Origin of holup

Abbreviation of hold up, possibly from r/Holup.

Questions about holup

What is holup the abbreviation of?
Holup is the abbreviation of hold up.

Words near holup in the dictionary

  1. Holubivka
  2. holubky
  3. holubtsi
  4. Holum
  5. Holums
  6. holup
  7. holus bolus
  8. holus-bolus
  9. Holway
  10. Holways
  11. Holwell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holup (page history and authors); hold 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-NaomiAmethyst-holup.wav.

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