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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

holding.

Something that one owns, especially stocks and bonds.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈhəʊldɪŋ/[ˈhəʉɫdɪŋ]Australia[ˈhəʊɫdɪŋ]UK[ˈhoʊɫdɪŋ]US
  1. Something that one owns, especially stocks and bonds.

  2. A determination of law made by a court.

  3. A tenure; a farm or other estate held of another.

  4. Logic; consistency.

    obsolete
  5. A foul consisting of impermissibly restricting the movement of an opposing player with the hands or stick.

  6. The burden or chorus of a song.

    obsolete
  7. That which holds, binds, or influences; hold; influence; power.

    obsolete · rare
  8. A holding company, or other kind of company.

    nonstandard
Where this word comes from

From hold + -ing. The sense "holding company" is from Russian холдинг (xolding), a pseudo-anglicism derived from an ellipsis of holding company.

verb/ˈhəʊldɪŋ/[ˈhəʉɫdɪŋ]Australia[ˈhəʊɫdɪŋ]UK[ˈhoʊɫdɪŋ]US
  1. present participle and gerund of hold

    form-of · gerund · participle · present
    They were caught holding hands in the dark.
Where this word comes from

From hold + -ing. The sense "holding company" is from Russian холдинг (xolding), a pseudo-anglicism derived from an ellipsis of holding company.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.