Definition of "hold up"

hold up

verb
third-person singular simple present holds up, present participle holding up, simple past and past participle held up
1. (intransitive, informal) To wait or delay.
2. (transitive) To impede; detain.
  Quotations
  It worked to perfection. Ferrari's decision not to stop on the next lap simply made life easier, especially when Alonso was held up by Marussia's Charles Pic during that period - for which the Frenchman earned a drive-through penalty.
  2012 May 13, Andrew Benson, “Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win”, in BBC Sport
3. (transitive) To support or lift.
  Quotations
  In order to accommodate the new platform 4 and the reversibly signalled slow line, a deep cutting had to be cut back and held up in places with a concrete retaining wall.
  1962 June, David Walters, “The new station and layout at Coventry”, in Modern Railways, page 405
  Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.
  1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins
4. (idiomatic) To withstand; to stand up to; to survive.
  Quotations
  The now infamous '108 woodlands' figure published by the Woodlands Trust, and later used by others to infer that HS2 would destroy 108 woodlands, does not hold up to scrutiny.
  2023 August 23, Chris Howe, “Green screen: HS2's route through the shires”, in RAIL, number 990, page 34
5. (transitive, idiomatic) To fulfil or complete one's part of an agreement.
6. (transitive, idiomatic) To rob at gunpoint.
7. To keep up; not to fall behind; not to lose ground.
  Quotations
  For what will the World say; Why could not he hold up? What made him come on so heavily, but that he wanted either Management or Metal
  1697, Jeremy Collier, Essays upon Several Moral Subjects
8. (transitive) (Of an artistic work) To continue to be seen as good, to avoid seeming dated.

Definition of "hold up"

hold up

verb

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