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Hold forth   /hoʊld fɔrθ/   Listen
verb
Hold  v. t.  (past & past part. held; pres. part. holding; past part. holden is obs)  
1.
To cause to remain in a given situation, position, or relation, within certain limits, or the like; to prevent from falling or escaping; to sustain; to restrain; to keep in the grasp; to retain. "The loops held one curtain to another." "Thy right hand shall hold me." "They all hold swords, being expert in war." "In vain he seeks, that having can not hold." "France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,... A fasting tiger safer by the tooth, Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold."
2.
To retain in one's keeping; to maintain possession of, or authority over; not to give up or relinquish; to keep; to defend. "We mean to hold what anciently we claim Of deity or empire."
3.
To have; to possess; to be in possession of; to occupy; to derive title to; as, to hold office. "This noble merchant held a noble house." "Of him to hold his seigniory for a yearly tribute." "And now the strand, and now the plain, they held."
4.
To impose restraint upon; to limit in motion or action; to bind legally or morally; to confine; to restrain. "We can not hold mortality's strong hand." "Death! what do'st? O, hold thy blow." "He had not sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his tongue."
5.
To maintain in being or action; to carry on; to prosecute, as a course of conduct or an argument; to continue; to sustain. "Hold not thy peace, and be not still." "Seedtime and harvest, heat and hoary frost, Shall hold their course."
6.
To prosecute, have, take, or join in, as something which is the result of united action; as to, hold a meeting, a festival, a session, etc.; hence, to direct and bring about officially; to conduct or preside at; as, the general held a council of war; a judge holds a court; a clergyman holds a service. "I would hold more talk with thee."
7.
To receive and retain; to contain as a vessel; as, this pail holds milk; hence, to be able to receive and retain; to have capacity or containing power for. "Broken cisterns that can hold no water." "One sees more devils than vast hell can hold."
8.
To accept, as an opinion; to be the adherent of, openly or privately; to persist in, as a purpose; to maintain; to sustain. "Stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught." "But still he held his purpose to depart."
9.
To consider; to regard; to esteem; to account; to think; to judge. "I hold him but a fool." "I shall never hold that man my friend." "The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
10.
To bear, carry, or manage; as he holds himself erect; he holds his head high. "Let him hold his fingers thus."
To hold a wager, to lay or hazard a wager.
To hold forth,
(a)
v. t.to offer; to exhibit; to propose; to put forward. "The propositions which books hold forth and pretend to teach."
(b)
v. i. To talk at length; to harangue.
To held in, to restrain; to curd.
To hold in hand, to toy with; to keep in expectation; to have in one's power. (Obs.) "O, fie! to receive favors, return falsehoods, And hold a lady in hand."
To hold in play, to keep under control; to dally with.
To hold off, to keep at a distance.
To hold on, to hold in being, continuance or position; as, to hold a rider on.
To hold one's day, to keep one's appointment. (Obs.)
To hold one's own. To keep good one's present condition absolutely or relatively; not to fall off, or to lose ground; as, a ship holds her own when she does not lose ground in a race or chase; a man holds his own when he does not lose strength or weight.
To hold one's peace, to keep silence.-
To hold out.
(a)
To extend; to offer. "Fortune holds out these to you as rewards."
(b)
To continue to do or to suffer; to endure. "He can not long hold out these pangs."
To hold up.
(a)
To raise; to lift; as, hold up your head.
(b)
To support; to sustain. "He holds himself up in virtue."
(c)
To exhibit; to display; as, he was held up as an example.
(d)
To rein in; to check; to halt; as, hold up your horses.
(e)
to rob, usually at gunpoint; often with the demand to "hold up" the hands.
(f)
To delay.
To hold water.
(a)
Literally, to retain water without leaking; hence (Fig.), to be whole, sound, consistent, without gaps or holes; commonly used in a negative sense; as, his statements will not hold water. (Colloq.)
(b)
(Naut.) To hold the oars steady in the water, thus checking the headway of a boat.


Hold  v. i.  (past & past part. held; pres. part. holding)  In general, to keep one's self in a given position or condition; to remain fixed. Hence:
1.
Not to move; to halt; to stop; mostly in the imperative. "And damned be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!""
2.
Not to give way; not to part or become separated; to remain unbroken or unsubdued. "Our force by land hath nobly held."
3.
Not to fail or be found wanting; to continue; to last; to endure a test or trial; to abide; to persist. "While our obedience holds." "The rule holds in land as all other commodities."
4.
Not to fall away, desert, or prove recreant; to remain attached; to cleave; often with with, to, or for. "He will hold to the one and despise the other."
5.
To restrain one's self; to refrain. "His dauntless heart would fain have held From weeping, but his eyes rebelled."
6.
To derive right or title; generally with of. "My crown is absolute, and holds of none." "His imagination holds immediately from nature."
Hold on! Hold up! wait; stop; forbear. (Collog) To hold forth, to speak in public; to harangue; to preach.
To hold in, to restrain one's self; as, he wanted to laugh and could hardly hold in.
To hold off, to keep at a distance.
To hold on, to keep fast hold; to continue; to go on. "The trade held on for many years,"
To hold out, to last; to endure; to continue; to maintain one's self; not to yield or give way.
To hold over, to remain in office, possession, etc., beyond a certain date.
To hold to or To hold with, to take sides with, as a person or opinion.
To hold together, to be joined; not to separate; to remain in union.
To hold up.
(a)
To support one's self; to remain unbent or unbroken; as, to hold up under misfortunes.
(b)
To cease raining; to cease to stop; as, it holds up.
(c)
To keep up; not to fall behind; not to lose ground.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Hold forth" Quotes from Famous Books



... they're but a pack of traitors to king and country, when all is said and done. All this does not suit an English gentleman. You think differently; or perhaps you do not care whether it does or not. I admit I can't hold forth as you do; nor string a lot of fine words together. I am only an old nincompoop compared to a clever young spark like you. But I request you to keep off these topics in the company I like to see round my table. They ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Cam. Do ye see, sir, this enemy to the muses? he will not let me hold forth to you. [Lays down the guitar.] O envy and ignorance, whither will you!—But, gad, before I'll suffer my parts ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... under the nickname of Columbus, and they would say, "Well, if you won't play, preach us a sermon," which he would do. Mounting on an old dwarf witch-elm about seven feet high, where several could sit, he would hold forth. This seems to have been a resort of his for reading, his favourite occupation. The same authority tells how, when suffering toothache, he allowed his companions to drag the tooth from his head with a violent jerk, by tying around ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... may be made as preliminary, and that is that Jesus Christ never tells people to cheer up without giving them reason to do so. We shall see presently that in all cases where the words occur they are immediately followed by words or deeds of His which hold forth something on which, if the hearer's faith lay hold, darkness and gloom will fly like morning mists before the rising sun. The world comes to us and says, in the midst of our sorrows and our difficulties, 'Be of good cheer,' and says it in vain, and generally only rubs salt into the sore ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... would have sought that enemy, under the disadvantages beneath which he knew himself to labor, would be to say that which would reflect little credit on his judgment; but, although not in a condition to hold forth the flag of defiance, where there was an inferiority in all but the skill of the leader and the personal courage of the men, he was not one to shun the battle that should be forced upon him. Still to him it ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... were to get on in the world, and he jolly well knew that he was right as often as not Masters were awful muffs. On the other hand, he hated gush like poison, and was invariably a hundred times better than his word, whereas Dreda could hold forth as eloquently as a parson, with the tears pouring down her cheeks, and her figure trembling with emotion, and the next day forget the very cause of her emotion! The girl was like a fire of shavings, quickly lighted, quickly extinguished, and probably ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to hold forth again, shaking his fist at Abdul Ali and making the roof echo to his mighty bellowing. I tugged at the skirt of his cloak, and after a minute he sat down to discover what I wanted. He seemed to think I needed reassurance. ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... analysis and philosophical criticism from age to age by their powerful style and the original turn given by them to ideas.' Here, for the benefit of the philistine, insert a panegyric on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Buffon. Hold forth upon the inexorable French language; show how it spreads a varnish, as it were, over thought. Let fall a few aphorisms, such as—'A great writer in France is invariably a great man; he writes in a language which compels him to think; it is otherwise in other countries'—and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... think that you would want to preach and teach and cobble all for nothin', and travel, and travel, and sleep anywhere. Father will be proper glad to see you—and mother; we are glad to see near upon anybody. I suppose that you will hold forth down to Crawford's; in the log meetin'-'ouse, or in the school-'ouse, may be, or under the great trees over Nancy Lincoln's grave. Elkins he preached there, ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... of that narrow box to the occupation of which he looked forward with so calm a foresight. Indeed he himself acknowledges a carelessness of outward comfort on his own behalf. "Come," he cries, to the spirit of mercenary success, "Thou jolly Substance, with thy shining Face, ... hold forth thy tempting Rewards; thy shining chinking Heap; thy quickly-convertible Bank-bill, big with unseen Riches; thy often-varying Stock; the warm, the comfortable House; ... Come thou, and if I am too tasteless of thy valuable Treasures, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden


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