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Hold back   /hoʊld bæk/   Listen
Hold back

verb
1.
Hold back, as of a danger or an enemy; check the expansion or influence of.  Synonyms: arrest, check, contain, stop, turn back.  "Check the growth of communism in South East Asia" , "Contain the rebel movement" , "Turn back the tide of communism"
2.
Keep under control; keep in check.  Synonyms: keep, keep back, restrain.  "Keep your temper" , "Keep your cool"
3.
Refrain from doing.  Synonym: forbear.
4.
Wait before acting.  Synonyms: hold off, wait.
5.
Secure and keep for possible future use or application.  Synonyms: hold, keep back, retain.  "I reserve the right to disagree"
6.
Hold back; keep from being perceived by others.  Synonyms: conceal, hold in.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hold back" Quotes from Famous Books



... her concern, not mine," said the other; "I'm not saying as it's just right; you needn't do as she does—but you're not bound to pay all up at once, you might hold back a little each now and then, and you'd have summat to spare ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... that Berthelot has been endeavoring for nearly a quarter of a century to hold back the progress of scientific chemistry, is a great and unjustifiable misrepresentation of the distinguished chemist and member of the Institute of France, who has done so much for thermo-chemistry, and the more unfortunate as it seems to serve only the purpose of a prelude ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various

... have you fast so that you can do no harm, I talk with you—not before. Hold back your head. That's it. Rest it against the chair while I draw this ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... was hot and looked it. "I thought you were satisfied about that. Look here; go ahead, pull whatever stunt is up your sleeve. I give you my word that if you see Leyden and feel as you do about him then, we'll hold back our own vessel until he's under weigh, no matter what we lose by it. Does that ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... you hadn't. Coombe's a terrible healthy place and poor Doc. Simmonds didn't pay a call a week. I just felt like some one ought to warn you. I despise folks who hold back from telling things because they ain't quite pleasant. Know the worst, I always say; it's better in the end. Of course, as Mark says, your being a Presbyterian will make considerable diff'rence. Some folks thought Doc. Simmonds ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... for-habban, to hold back, to keep one's self: inf. ne meahte wǣfre mōd forhabban in hreðre, the expiring life could not hold itself back in the breast, 1152; ne mihte þā for-habban, could ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... supplement to bring the history up to about the date of 554, being a general account of events in different parts of the empire. It is necessary to bear in mind that the wars described separately by Procopius overlapped one another in time, and that while the Romans were striving to hold back the Persian aggressor they were also maintaining armies in Africa and in Italy. In fact the Byzantine empire was making a supreme effort to re-establish the old boundaries, and to reclaim the territories lost to the barbarian nations. The emperor Justinian was fired by the ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... one of our first families,—very wealthy,—fine match,—pray, be civil,—smooth your hair, hold back your shoulders, and put down your parasol," murmured Aunt Pen, as the gentleman approached with as much pleasure in his countenance as it was consistent with manly dignity to express upon meeting two of the ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... you to feel the weight of the first of those trials whereof it speaks, for I will no longer hold back the truth from you. Children, I, whom for all these years you have thought of your own faith, am a Jew as my forefathers were before me, back to the days ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... for Adderly was striking right and left to get free from the men. "Hold back! There's ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... urged her to do so in the face of a sudden yearning to draw his bloody face up close to her and kiss it. The very thought, the swift surge of the impulse frightened her, shocked her. She could not understand it, and so she took refuge behind the woman instinct to hold back, that strange feminine paradox which will deny and shrink from the dominant impulses of life. And Roaring Bill made no effort to hold her. He let her go, and fumbled for a handkerchief to wipe his glistening face. And presently he went over to ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the beginning of the slant, Jack Davis' face took on an anxious look, his mouth became firm and set, his hand tightened upon the reins, and his foot upon the brake, and with constant exclamation to his horses of "Easy now!—go easy!—hold back, my beauties!" he guided the great coach in ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... what he could to hold back the business, but there was a prospect of loss and considerable trouble if the documents were not eventually found. The opposing interests learned of the halt, and tried to take advantage of it. They were, however, only ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... each man runs forward from tree to tree, or stump to stump, and yet preserves a good general alignment, it gives great confidence to the men themselves, for they always keep their eyes well to the right and left, and watch their comrades; but when some few hold back, stick too close or too long to a comfortable log, it often stops the line and defeats the whole object. Therefore, the more we improve the fire-arm the more will be the necessity for good organization, good discipline and intelligence on the part of the individual soldier and officer. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... victory," says Tacitus; "comrades for their chieftain." When one of Beowulf's "comrades" saw his lord hard bested "he minded him of the homestead he had given him, of the folk right he gave him as his father had it; nor might he hold back then." Snatching up sword and shield he called on his fellow-thegns to follow him to the fight. "I mind me of the day," he cried, "when we drank the mead, the day we gave pledge to our lord in the beer hall as he gave us these rings, our pledge that we would pay him back our war-gear, ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... continued, "I have been stationed with General Pitain at Verdun, where I last saw you. Now we know that the Germans have drawn heavily from other fronts to make possible the Italian invasion. Other fronts now will have to be weakened to hold back General Byng — even to launch a counter- offensive, for we all know that Hindenburg will strike back. That leaves the Verdun ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... instrumental in bringing this about, and a performance of Euryanthe was actually given which yielded the handsome balance of six thousand marks. A few theatres of lesser importance now followed our lead. The Dresden Court Theatre, therefore, could not hold back any longer, and as we now had a fairly large sum at the bank, we were able to cover the expenses of the removal, as well as the cost of an appropriate vault and monument; we even had a nucleus fund for a statue of Weber, which we were to fight ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... tendency, which has always confounded astute persons who have been interested only in particulars. It is a movement like that of the Mississippi at flood-time. The great river flows within its banks as long as it can. But the time comes when the barriers are too frail to hold back the mighty waters. Then the river makes, very quickly, a channel for itself. You cannot understand what has happened till you take into account the magnitude of the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... which you can gain their attention and their hearts, and do more good than in any missionary field." Once, on board a steamer near Vicksburg, during the fearful winter siege of that city, some one said to her, "You must hold back, you are going beyond your strength, you will die if you are not more prudent!" "Well," said she, with thrilling earnestness, "what if I do? Shall men come here by tens of thousands and fight, and suffer, and die, and shall ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... with him on his bloody mind, Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes To ponder on my lecture in the shade. I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, And in some minor matters (may I say it?) Could wish him rather sager. But from thee God hold back wisdom yet for many years! Whether in early season or in late It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast I have no lesson; it for me has many. Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares (Since there are none too young for ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... They believe He could cure the malady of sin on certain conditions. They believe He is no respecter of persons. They believe He has done it for hundreds as bad as they, and yet there is some reason why they do not trust Him. They hold back. ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth

... quickly. "All I'd have to do would be to buy all the wheat I could get trusted for and then hold back the job a little. And while I was at it, I might just as well make a clean job and walk off with the pay roll." He laughed. "I'd look pretty, wouldn't I, going to old MacBride with my tail between my legs, telling him that the job was too much for me and ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... dared to tread where the older ones had been so well-taught to hold back. One of the first vacation mornings she joined him on the path to the Study and lured him down to the beach. It was the time of day for the first smoke, the smoke of all. Now the Old Man was accustomed to enter the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... the Boy's rifle kept slipping and making a brake to hold back the sled, "I reckon you'll have to plant that rifle o' yours in the next big drift," said the Colonel; ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... in green and wearing on breast and back the yellow stars of their Gens. Now they were nude as they had come into the world and standing there, each was holding out hands in horror, to hold back myriads of the Gnomes, who would have forced them to submerge themselves in the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... crutches; and here was the blind man led by a hound. And with each man came women: the wife of the man, or his mother, or his sisters, or she to whom he was vowed in marriage. Weeping they came, and with soft words and clinging arms they strove to hold back him whom they loved. ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... you bear in mind that the chances are ten to five that, when you do come to know her, she will fall far short of your ideal, and you will not care for her in the least. Look at it in this sensible light, and I will hold back nothing ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... ruby, and the topaz, and first he pushed them from him, and then he drew them back again. And seeing them thus cheapened in Reuben's hairy fingers, the precious jewels which had clasped his Ruth's soft wrist and her white neck, Israel could scarcely hold back his hand from snatching them away. But how can he that is poor answer him that is rich? So Israel put his twitching hands behind him, remembering Naomi and the poor people of Absalam, and when at length Reuben tendered him for ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... bells Silenced a while at once their peal renew, 250 And high in air the tuneful thunder rolls. See, how they toss, with animated rage Recovering all they lost!—That eager haste Some doubling wile foreshews.—Ah! yet once more They're checked—hold back with speed—on either hand They nourish round—even yet persist—'Tis right, Away they spring; the rustling stubbles bend Beneath the driving storm. Now the poor chase Begins to flag, to her last shifts reduced. From brake to brake she flies, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... and support. He stated that Southerners, angry at the failure to secure recognition, were loudly proclaiming that they both could and would humble and embarrass Great Britain (F.O., Am., Vol. 781. No. 82. Bunch to Russell, July 8, 1861). Bunch wrote on July 23 that the South planned to hold back its cotton until Great Britain and France raised the blockade (Ibid., No. 87). Bunch was now impressed with ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... belied the mountaineer stride and the grasp of strong brown hands on a rifle. It had an effect on Jean totally inexplicable to him, both in the strange warmth that stole over him and in the utterance he could not hold back. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... he said, finally. "Considine is too impulsive. He was not firm enough. Now I got an important letter from the agents to-day, saying that they could do nothing about the noise of the children. In the lease it expressly mentions them. I shall simply hold back the rent ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... dark side of Jim's infirmity; one of its more amusing sides was his bank book. When Jim was himself, as we used to say of him, he wanted to do well and to thrive like Asa, and he asked the old Squire to hold back ten dollars from his wages every month and to deposit it for him in the new savings bank. Mindful of his infirmity, Jim gave his bank book to grandmother to keep ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... telling of an adventure which at this very time befell, though it scarce belongs to my present chronicle. But it may be that, in time to come, faith will wax cold, and the very saints be misdoubted of men. It therefore behoves me not to hold back the truth which I know, and which this tale makes plain and undeniable even by Hussites, Lollards, and other miscreants. For he who reads must be constrained to own that there is no strait so terrible but the saints can bring safely forth therefrom such ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... would be an ignoble thing to give up such a grand enterprise as this simply because they found the enemy strong and so well prepared to meet them, and ended by stating that if he saw a man flinch or hold back for a second, he would pistol him with his own hand. Whereupon the pirates all shook hands and promised they would follow L'Olonnois wherever he ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... a little dubious, but how can a young man hold back in a matter of this kind? "All right, if you ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... years old, of likes and dislikes, of genius and incapacity, of an astounding cleverness, and a preposterous foolishness without compare in the history of dynasties. But that doesn't matter nowadays. This is a progressive age, you know; even the Bourbons cannot hold back the advance ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... expect came in quite the proper tone—Miss Braddon, for instance, who was really one of the best where all are good—or all but one!... In short, I fell in love with "The First Book" series, and determined that it should be all our first books, and that I could not hold back where the white plume of Conan Doyle waved gallantly in the front. I hope they will republish them, though it's a grievous thought to me that that effigy in the German cap—likewise the other effigy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... has been said, the man who should hold back from marriage is in the same case with him who runs away from battle. To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall. It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... children and himself of comely form; and if in addition to this he shall end his life well, he is worthy to be called that which thou seekest, namely a happy man; but before he comes to his end it is well to hold back and not to call him yet happy but only fortunate. Now to possess all these things together is impossible for one who is mere man, just as no single land suffices to supply all tings for itself, but one thing it has and ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... pinchbeck jewelry in the small showcase which they did not study carefully. Especially Madge dwelt on combs, for Layson, once, had mentioned combs as parts of the adornment of the women whom he knew. There in the mountains young girls did not wear them, save of the "circular" variety, designed to hold back "shingled" tresses. But from underneath a box of faded gum-drops and the store's one carton of cigars, came some of imitation tortoise-shell, gilt ornamented, of the sort old ladies sometimes stuck into their hirsute knots for mountain "doings" of great elegance, and the best of these ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... to resist the temptation of hastening to the yellow drawing-room. When the footman came to tell him, in the middle of the night, that there were some gentlemen below asking for him, he could not hold back any longer. He got up and went ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... come!" cried I as a terrific yell from Jack sent the whole herd screaming down the hill. Now Peterkin, being unable to hold back, crept a short way up a very steep grassy mound in order to get a better view of the hogs before they came up; and just as he raised his head above its summit, two little pigs, which had outrun their companions, rushed ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... once. I bade him call in the guests, whom curiosity or interest still detained in the porch, and seat them in a certain room which I designated to him. Then, after telling him to send two men to the gates with orders to hold back all further carriages from entering, and two others to shovel up and cart away to the stable every particle of snow for ten feet each side of the front step, I asked to see Mr. Deane. But here ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... miles. It is of torrential character, very big indeed in the late spring and early summer and very low most of the remainder of the year. In years, not far distant, there will be storage dams at many points, to hold back the springtime floods from the melting of the snows of the Rockies, and from the river's flow will be generated electric power for the turning of the wheels of the Southwest. All this is in plans made by the League of the Southwest, a body now headed by Governor ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... the doubting hold back, there are others who will take their places and keep our ranks full. We have only to hold our position, and drive back the army of doubters, or opposers, who may resist our march. We must give them the ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... value, but this does not free him. He can pay also by his wife or daughter.[652] Amongst the Ewe-speaking tribes a woman who is condemned to a fine may sell or pawn her children, if her husband will not give her the amount to be paid. The husbands often hold back until the women pawn the children to them, whereby they obtain complete control of the children.[653] Their slaves are criminals and debtors, or, if foreigners, are victims of war or of kidnapping. They are not regarded with contempt, are well treated, do not ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... indifferent wooer. This palliated in her mind the disloyalty of which she was guilty towards him, and at last, in the summer just gone, she had actually written to Mr. Hollins for proofs of his assertions. For a long time—for weeks—he seemed to hold back, but at last there came three letters, written in a pretty, girlish hand. She shrank from opening them, but Mr. Hollins, in his accompanying lines, simply bade her have no such compunction. They had been read by half a dozen men in camp already, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... the appearance of stiffness, some one ought to speak, and speak promptly. The news had not come to us directly from our neighbors, but authoritatively from a friend of theirs, who was also a friend of ours, and we could not very well hold back. So, in the cool of the early evening, when I had quite finished rasping my lawn with the new mower, I left it at the end of the swath, which had brought me near the ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... who has read about Joshua and forgotten Canute. He believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin whistle and a raised right hand. For after all it is life with which he quarrels. Censorship is seldom greatly concerned with truth. Propriety is its worry and obviously impropriety was allowed to creep into the ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... continued—"Don't think you can escape me—I'll have a thousand eyes upon you; no one ever escapes me that I wish to retain. Do as I require, and I'll promote your interest in every possible way, and protect you; but waver, or hold back, and I'll hang you as unhesitatingly as if you were ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... now clear, and even the most timid of counsellors could not longer hold back the most indolent of kings. Jeanne had kept her word once more and fulfilled her own prophecy, and a force of enthusiasm and certainty, not to be put down, pressed forward the unwilling Court towards the great ceremonial of the coronation, to which all except those most chiefly ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... he said with a thrill of devout emotion; and he watched the horizon while it changed like a great flower calyx from gray to pearly yellow, from yellow to pale green, and at last, when it could hold back the day no longer, to a vast rose red with a golden ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... could no longer hold back behind that floating black cloud, and with her first appearance Frank turned an anxious face toward the spot where a violent agitation in the brush announced the ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... their departure shortly. Mrs. Bryce ordered the cook to hold back dinner. Then she let her vexation grow. It was outrageous that this little pest should upset things so completely. She had been especially anxious to impress this Mr. Christiansen, whom she had recently met. He was a distinguished litterateur and ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... were in the wagons, and they, except the drivers, slept soundly; rocked gently, very gently, by the slow grinding of the wheels in the soft, deep sand. But Luke and I, on our little mules, must keep awake, and alert as possible, in readiness to hold back the cattle from ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... scarcely to be credited. That in the two kingdoms above mentioned, where, during his residence, he had conversed very much, he observed long life to be the universal desire and wish of mankind. That whoever had one foot in the grave was sure to hold back the other as strongly as he could. That the oldest had still hopes of living one day longer, and looked on death as the greatest evil, from which nature always prompted him to retreat. Only in this island of Luggnagg the appetite for living was not so eager, from the continual example of ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... them without piercing his fellow. Do you bide here with the centre where your standard can be seen by all to north and south. I and my companion will lead your vanguard farther on to where the ridge draws nearer to the Nile, so that with their arrows they can hold back and slay any who strive to escape down stream. The rest is in your hands, for we are guides, not generals. Summon your ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... river till the ebb. Mochuda answered: —"Advance through the water before the others in the name of your Lord Jesus Christ for He is the way the truth and the life" [John 14:6]. As soon as they heard this command of Mochuda's Molua said to Colman, "Which of the two will you hold back—the stream above or the sea below?" Colman answered:—"Let each restrain that which is nearest to him"—for Molua was on the upper, or stream, side and Colman on the lower, or sea, side. Molua said to Colman—"Forbid you the sea side to flow naturally and I shall forbid the ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... a flush burned in her cheeks. He was eager to fight—it seemed to her that he was almost hoping for the attack at the door. It made her splendidly unafraid, and suddenly she laughed softly—a nervous, unexpected little laugh which she could not hold back, and he turned quickly to catch the warm glow in her eyes. Something went up into his throat as she stood there looking at him like that. He had never seen any one quite so beautiful. He dropped his club, and held ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... Martin Stevens told him quietly, suppressing his own excitement, "for such was said to be the construction of the City of the Golden Gates; but now I judge they are walls raised on those original foundations by the frantic populace, when the submergence first began, in a vain effort to hold back ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... western Tengiz oil field to the Black Sea increases prospects for substantially larger oil exports in several years. The emigration of large numbers of skilled Slavic managers and technicians from the northern industrial areas will hold back future growth. ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... machine, and burn the ricks if they don't get what they want. Father said they might be sure of the Downhill men, and most of 'em here, for they all hate that there machine that is to starve poor folk in winter time; and those that were not of that way would be afraid to hold back, or they would show them ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... giving news will help us to cover the military secrets which we desire to preserve," Partow said, with slow emphasis. "We shall hold back what we please, confident of the people's trust. Good policy that, yes! But enough! Your orders are ready, in detail, I believe. You ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... Britain determined to liberate the slaves in her West India colonies, and proposed the apprenticeship system; the planters of Bermuda and Antigua, after having joined the other planters in their representations of the bloody consequences of Emancipation, in order if possible to hold back the hand which was offering the boon of freedom to the poor negro; as soon as they found such falsehoods were utterly disregarded, and Abolition must take place, came forward voluntarily, and asked for the compensation which was due to them, saying, they preferred immediate emancipation, ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... from heart trouble and other torments. One day his servant heard him calling, and, hastening to his side, found him on a divan writhing in agony; his last words were: "Call my wife and the doctor." Cosima flew to his aid, but could not hold back the inevitable. When the doctor came and told her that Wagner had finished his struggle with the arch-critic, Death, she screamed and fainted. For twenty-six hours she refused to leave his body or to take any food, and could be dragged ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... Swiftwater described as the "Siwash Curve," due entirely to the fact that the white man in poling up a river would exert himself in a way that the average Indian considered unprofessional, and would try to hold back, thus adding to the "white man's burden." He insisted that the white man usually got over this after the first day's work, and tried to make it pleasant for the Siwash ever after. He limited the trick of each boy at the pole for the first day to one hour, and he ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... I could not at once shake loose those poisonous thoughts of a lifetime, which have at last become externalized in separation from all that I hold dearest in this life, you, my beloved girl, you." He buried his face in her luxuriant hair and strove to hold back ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... with a sermon with the principal actor as text. They like to get their money's worth. See? This girl, what I want spliced, is a devilish—" he paused—"you don't mind moderately strong language, do you?" he asked. "We all get flowery up here. What is lacking in events, talk makes up. I'll hold back ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... Afridun heard this, terror took hold upon his heart and he wrote letters, without stay or delay, to all the nations of the Nazarenes, saying, "It behoveth none of the Messiahites or Cross knights to hold back, especially the folk of the strongholds and forts: but let them all come to us, foot and horse, women and children, for the Moslem hosts already tread our soil. So haste! haste ye! ere what we fear to us here appear." Thus much concerning them; but regarding the work of the old woman, Zat al-Dawahi; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... Wendot suddenly, "have I done wrong in this thing? I asked not thy gentle counsel, yet thou didst not bid me hold back. But tell me, have I been wrong? Could I have done ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the ablest of Canadian governors, La Galissoniere, seeing the feebleness of the colony compared with the vastness of its claims, advised the King to send ten thousand peasants to occupy the valley of the Ohio, and hold back the British swarm that was just then pushing its advance-guard over the Alleghanies. It needed no effort of the King to people his waste domain, not with ten thousand peasants, but with twenty times ten thousand Frenchmen ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... silence and then the Army major strangled on a mouthful of coffee; the security man turned beet red in the face and Dr. Peterson's jaw bounced off his breastbone. Johnny, unable to hold back an explosion of laughter, dashed for ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... and angry and hurt to the very soul of her, Billy Louise opened the gate and went out. "It strikes me you Cove folks are not wanting advice these days, or needing it. If you know anything to tell, for heaven's sake don't hold back on my account! It's nothing to me, one way or the other. I'm no rustler, and no friend of rustlers, if that's what you're hinting at." She left them with a proud lift to her chin and a very straight back, went to Blue, and mounted ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... tiredly, "I have been given more runarounds in the past week than Mercury has had in the past millennium. I expect clients to be cagey, to hold back information, and to lie. But I didn't expect it ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... uses has been made, and is made, by the hands of men; and, on the other side, as soon as a healthy man has awakened and eaten, the necessity of working with feet and hands and brain makes itself felt. In order to find work and to work, he need only not hold back: only a person who thinks work disgraceful—like the lady who requests her guest not to take the trouble to open the door, but to wait until she can call a man for this purpose—can put to himself the question, what he ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... conspirators were standing round Caesar each with a drawn sword in his hand; whithersoever he turned his eyes he saw a weapon ready to strike, and he struggled like a wild beast among the hunters. They had agreed that every one should take a part in the murder, and Brutus, friend as he was, could not hold back. The rest, some say, he struggled with, throwing himself hither and thither, and crying aloud; but as soon as he saw Brutus with a drawn sword in his hand, he wrapped his head in his toga and ceased to resist, falling, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... in ignorance of her attachment to Edward Dodd, and urged her to confession. But at that Nature recoiled: Edward had not openly declared his love to her; so modest pride, as well as modest shame, combined with female cowardice to hold back the avowal. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... gentleman. I've been in England, I like the English,' by this time his military attendants rode up, and seeing him alone in the midst of us were going to ride us down at once but the old boy beckoned with his hand for them to hold back, and continued his sarmont. 'I should wish you,' says he, quite pleasant, 'whilst you remain in France to be orderly, obliging, civil, and polite; it's always the best—now remember this: and here's something for you ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... very often!" he said to himself, as he descended the steps, furious with himself that he was obliged to hold back a sob. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... did the big machine work that even patrol commanders had received the orders well in advance of the hour. Apparently the Germans also had been equally diligent in getting the orders to the front line. Notwithstanding the hard fighting they did Sunday to hold back the Americans, the Germans were able to bring the firing to an abrupt ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... the first to reach the priest, and spreading his hands over him, he commanded the others to hold back. "God desireth not the death of a sinner,'" said he, "'but rather that he turn from ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... species of madness, resulting from the severity of his sufferings, he rushed blindly into new and ever more cruel and senseless torments; aggravating and complicating his miserable state in a thousand ways; passing from perversion to perversion, from aberration to aberration, without being able to hold back or to stop for one moment in his giddy descent. He seemed to be devoured by an inextinguishable fever, the heat of which made all the germs of human lust lying dormant in the hidden depths of his being flourish and grow big. His every thought, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... was horribly afraid, but for very shame he could not hold back. Together they stole a little way within the vaulted entrance and listened again. Nothing but the roar of the machinery. The vast hall would have been in utter darkness save for the glare of the conflagration; as it was, they could see clearly ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... I would not pay the least attention to what they say. If you hold back too much they will say, 'There was her own mother, knowing numbers of nice people, that never took the trouble to lend ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... it, they will hold back our supplies two or three weeks, and reach the pass ahead of us, dead certain," added Jack through his teeth. "We've got to ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... lost much: having been ravished, she gave herself away; why be niggardly now? And this is the destiny of her type, that they lose increasingly much, retaining ever less; what need to hold back now? The ground has been completely shifted: from half-measures to the immolation of all virtue. The type is well-known, and can be found at resorts and boarding-houses, ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... Him, yet until we have Him how we fear Him. For that inclusive knowledge of us which is God, if only we can bear to come to it, endows us with freedom. For then all the barriers are down, there is nothing to conceal, nothing to explain, nothing to hold back. Then reality and appearance coincide, character and condition correspond. I am what I am before Him. Supreme reality from without answers and completes my own, and makes me real, and my reality makes ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... to arrive at last at that pause when she could say to her aunt, "Now, dear?" and rise and hold back the curtain through the archway. Capes and her father stood up, and her father made a belated movement toward the curtain. She realized that he was the sort of man one does not think much about at dinners. And Capes was thinking that his wife was a supremely ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... be done in these days, though my father or my husband would have sent the rascal back to Guildford without his ears. But the Church and the Law are too strong now for us who are of gentler blood. Trouble will come of it, Nigel, for the Abbot of Waverley is not one who will hold back the shield of the Church from ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... representatives to Jamestown. Plantations continued to multiply until the destruction of the massacre temporarily rolled back the number. For a time the settlements were reduced to, perhaps, a dozen. Even the massacre, however, could not long hold back what was becoming a tide. The reoccupation of abandoned areas and the utilization of new land was quickly the order of the day. In 1625 a total of 27 areas or communities were reported. In this surge of expansion the center of population now passed again from Jamestown and rested in the lower ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch

... virtue;... when he had to choose between personal ease and enjoyment, or again, on the other hand, between political power and distinction, and what he knew to be the welfare of the nation, his choice was made at once. When his choice was made, no man ever saw him hesitate, no man ever saw him hold back from that which was necessary to give it effect.' Though his own political views changed, Gladstone always paid tribute to the moral influence which Peel had exercised in political life, purifying its practices and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... up and keep on with the retreat!" cried the director. "That's one of the best scenes of the picture. Couldn't have been better if we had rehearsed it. Never mind the cat, Miss DeVere. Run on. Paul, you land a couple of blows on Whitlow and then follow Alice. Hold back, there—you Union men—until we get ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope

... if there's only two children, if their Ma is makin' 'em caps to hold back their ears and pinchin' their noses regular, she ain't got no time to have her own nose flattened out against the glass lookin' for ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... He saw Kirby grin at his answer. The plan was one after the Texan's heart, and Drew knew what it had meant to him to hold back ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... qualities, there are some not quite so pleasant. We must mend this matter for you, however, and what I wish to say to you now, is, that you must not spoil all I do, by any pride of that kind which will make you hold back when ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... old fellow, "the gentleman can't speak fairer; and we shall all think you be afeard if you hold back." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "Hold back, Biarne; I mean them no harm, and wish no bloodshed—only they must have a good fright. The lads, no doubt, would like to run in and make short work of them; but I intend to breathe the lads, which will in the end do just as ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... if she wished to hold back these words, she held out a picture across the table and pointed at some horsemen from the pampas, who were ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... as he trudged along, the roar of great motors came to Fairchild's ears; and a moment later he stepped aside to allow the passage of ore-laden automobile trucks, loaded until the springs had flattened and until the engines howled with their compression as they sought to hold back their burdens on the steep grade. And it was as he stood there, watching the big vehicles travel down the mountain side, that Fairchild caught a glimpse of a human figure which suddenly darted behind a clump of scrub pine and skirted far to one side, taking advantage of every covering. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... we have seen shall, for my need and comfort, and for your own longing, hold back his greatest gift, and leave you mine in the earthly ways we know and love, or shall hasten to make the heavenly surprise, the issue in either event will be a home-coming; if here, yet already the deeper secret will have been in part disclosed; and if beyond, that secret, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... all over," said Patty; "I think the French not only put the best foot forward, but the foot they hold back is ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... she's a nice girl; too nice, I guess, to get along very fast. I see girls all the way along down gettin' acquainted on the cars and boats—we come east on the Ogdensburg road to Rouse's Point, and then took the boat down Lake Champlain and Lake George—but she always seemed to hold back. I don't know's she's proud either; I can't make it out. It balls my wife all up, too. I tell her she's fretted off all the good her trip's goin' to do her before she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... us in full retreat; and without pausing for a reply he went off at a gallop, followed by Gahra and myself; for although I had no particular desire to attack men who were flying for their lives and to whom I knew no quarter would be given, it was impossible to hold back when my comrades were rushing into danger. Had the Spaniards been less intent on getting away it would have fared ill with us. As it was, we were all wounded. Gahra got a thrust through the arm, Carmen a gash in the ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... can't get anywhere under the Constitution. Every time we make a move—check. It was adopted by aristocrats to hold back the people and that's what it's ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... sobbing to Old Tom in the garden, after the doctor had arrived and was closeted in the hushed room; "ye didn't need ter more'n look at her aunt's face ter see that 'twa'n't no duty that was eatin' her. Yer hands don't shake, and yer eyes don't look as if ye was tryin' ter hold back the Angel o' Death himself, when you're jest doin' yer DUTY, Mr. Tom ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... them, materially injuring their works, and attended with such fatal slaughter to the men who worked them, that even the bravest shrunk back appalled; that the advice of the senior officers had been to hold back until these engines were repaired, merely keeping strict guard against unexpected sallies on the part of the Scotch, as this would not only give them time to recruit their strength, but in all probability throw the besieged off their guard. Not above half of the army, however, agreed with this counsel; ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... ferreted out their secret was now too plain to admit a doubt. But what conceivable use did he mean to make of it? To interfere with the Cypriani's homegoing was beyond his power now. Did it better suit his mysterious purpose to hold back until the thing was done, in order to raise the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison



Words linked to "Hold back" :   hold out, defend, refrain, cut down, keep, move, hold on, bottle up, occult, suppress, control, inhibit, hold down, curb, delay, act, confine, moderate, cut out, hold in



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