uphold
/ˌʌpˈhəʊld/
uphold verb: to hold up; to lift on high; to elevate.
Verb
uphold (third-person singular simple present upholds, present participle upholding, simple past upheld, past participle upheld or (archaic) upholden)
- To hold up; to lift on high; to elevate.
- The mournful train/ Echoed her grief, [...]/ With groans, and hands upheld, to move his mind, /Besought his pity to their helpless kind1899, John Dryden, Geoffrey Chaucer, Percival Chubb, Dryden's Palamon and Arcite, page 5
- To keep erect; to support; to sustain; to keep from falling.
- A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.1769, The King James Bible, Proverbs 29:23
- That misbegotten devil, Falconbridge, /In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.1623, William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John, Act V, Scene iv
- To support by approval or encouragement; to vindicate; to confirm (something which has been questioned).
- let any moral come along and she would uphold it1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC
- but there was still a connexion upheld among the different ideas, which succeeded each other.1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral., London: Oxford University Press, published 1973, § 18
- Synonyms:
- vindicate
Proper noun capitalized: Uphold
Uphold (plural Upholds)
- A surname.
uphold meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
uphold in Tamil
- தூக்கிநிறுத்து
uphold in Urdu
- تائید کرنا, حمایت کرنا, برقرار رکھنا, پابند رکھنا
uphold in Bengali
- সমর্থন করা, বজায় রাখা
uphold in Malayalam
- പിന്തുണയ്ക്കുക, താങ്ങിനിർത്തുക, വീഴാതെ പിടിക്കുക, വിശ്വസിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- uphold in Kannada
- ಸಮರ್ಥಿಸು, ಎತ್ತಿಹಿಡಿ, ಬೆಂಬಲಿಸು, ಅನುಮೋದಿಸು
- uphold in Arabic
- رَفَعَ rafaʕa, سَنَدَ sanada, دَعَمَ daʕama
- uphold in Indonesian
- menyangga, mendukung, menyokong, menjaga
Examples of uphold in a sentence
- Trump said, “I don’t know” when asked by NBC News if he had to uphold the Constitution.2025 May 9, Cameron Joseph, “They’ve watched democracies fail. They see it happening under Trump.”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
- We must continually separate out and clearly articulate that support for the Jews as a people has nothing to do with upholding the policies of the Israeli state.1986 February 15, GCN staff, “Our Movement Is No Place for Jew-hating”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 31, page 4:
Synonyms of uphold
Forms of uphold
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | upholds |
| present participle | upholding |
| past | upheld |
| past participle | upheld |
| past participle (archaic) | upholden |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Upholds |
Origin of uphold
From Middle English upholden, equivalent to up- + hold. Compare Dutch ophouden (“to stop, cease, hold up”), German aufhalten (“to stop, halt, detain”). Compare also Middle Low German upholt, Old Norse upphald (“uphold, support”).
Words formed from uphold
Words that rhyme with uphold
Questions about uphold
- What does uphold mean?
- Uphold means to hold up; to lift on high; to elevate.
- What is uphold in Tamil?
- Uphold in Tamil is தூக்கிநிறுத்து. See Uphold meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use uphold in a sentence?
- Trump said, “I don’t know” when asked by NBC News if he had to uphold the Constitution.
- What part of speech is uphold?
- Uphold can be a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce uphold?
- Uphold is pronounced /ˌʌpˈhəʊld/.
- What is the past tense of uphold?
- The past tense of uphold is upheld.
Words near uphold in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: uphold (page history and authors); Uphold (page history and authors); uphold (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); uphold (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); uphold (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); uphold (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); uphold (Kannada Wiktionary) (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)-Vealhurl-uphold.wav.
Cite this entry: “uphold.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/uphold. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.