Word.ws English Dictionary

on hold

on hold prepositional phrase: delayed; postponed; suspended.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Delayed; postponed; suspended.
    • This project is on hold until we can get more information.
    • Plans to build a western rail route into Heathrow Airport have been put on hold, with Network Rail saying that staff working on the scheme have been moved to other projects.2021 May 5, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Heathrow Western Rail Access scheme 'on hold'”, in RAIL, number 930, page 26
  2. Waiting on a telephone call.
    • I have been on hold for 45 minutes listening to a recording about how important my call is to them.
  3. On reserve; being held for someone.
    • I have a book on hold for me at the library.
  4. Pertaining to a telephone hold state.
    • Now James Kellaris, a professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati, reports that the sexes respond differently to onhold^([sic]) music.1999, New Scientist

Forms of on hold

alternative formon-hold

Questions about on hold

What does on hold mean?
On hold means delayed; postponed; suspended.
What part of speech is on hold?
On hold is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on hold in the dictionary

  1. on hand
  2. on heat
  3. on high
  4. on hire
  5. On HMS
  6. on hold
  7. on horseback
  8. on ice
  9. on impulse
  10. on in years
  11. on instruments

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on hold (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-on hold.ogg.

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