hold down

hold down
phrasal verb [transitive]
Word forms "hold down":
present tense I/you/we/they hold down he/she/it holds down present participle holding down past tense held down past participle held down
1) to hold someone who is lying down, so that they cannot move

Four people held him down.

2) to hold something so it does not move upwards

They put a cloth on the grass and stones on the edge to hold it down.

3) to prevent something from developing, or to prevent someone from doing what they want

She proved that being a woman wouldn't hold her down.

4) to stop prices or numbers from rising

a deal to hold down wages and prices

5) to succeed in keeping a job

Half of them have never held down a proper job.

6) to stop someone from having their freedom or rights

The regime had been holding down its people for years.


English dictionary. 2014.

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  • Hold down — may refer to: * A pinning hold in grappling. * A hold down is a steel device in structural engineering …   Wikipedia

  • hold down — (something) to succeed in keeping something. He s never been able to hold down a steady job. The film held down second place in the top five movies over the last weekend …   New idioms dictionary

  • hold down — ► hold down informal succeed in keeping (a job). Main Entry: ↑hold …   English terms dictionary

  • hold|down — «HOHLD DOWN», noun. U.S. the prevention of rises or increases so far as possible or convenient; repression: »a holddown on all spending …   Useful english dictionary

  • hold down — index constrain (restrain), dominate, extinguish, subject Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • hold down — verb 1. keep (Freq. 1) She manages to hold down two jobs • Hypernyms: ↑retain, ↑hold, ↑keep back, ↑hold back • Verb Frames: Somebody s something …   Useful english dictionary

  • hold down — 1) PHRASAL VERB: oft with brd neg If you hold down a job or a place in a team, you manage to keep it. [V P n (not pron)] He never could hold down a job... [V P n (not pron)] Constant injury problems had made it tough for him to hold down a… …   English dictionary

  • hold down — /ˌhəυld daυn/ verb 1. to keep at a low level ● We are cutting margins to hold our prices down. 2. ♦ to hold down a job to manage to do a difficult job ▪▪▪ ‘…real wages have been held down; they have risen at an annual rate of only 1% in the last… …   Dictionary of banking and finance

  • hold down — 1) they will hold down inflation Syn: keep down, keep low, freeze, fix 2) informal she held down two jobs Syn: occupy, have, do, fill 3) the people can be held down only so long …   Thesaurus of popular words

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