holde 
holdet, ade. [ME., < AS. holde, graciously, < 
hold, gracious : see ltohf*.~\ Faithfully. 
Helde thou it neuer so holde, & I here passed, 
Founded for fere to fle, ... I were u knyght koward. 
Sir Gautayne and the Green Knight (E. E. T. S.), 1. -'!-.. 
holdet, a. [ME., with reversion to the vowel 
of hold?, a., for "hi/lde, < AS. lii/liln, hi/ldu (= 
OS. huldi = OFries. helde = OH(';. Imld'f. MHG. 
hulde), graciousuess, < hold, gracious: see hold?, 
.] Faithfulness. 
Ac alle deden him feute, 
And sworen hym holde and lewte. 
King Aliaaunder (Weber's Metr. Rom.), 1. 2911. 
holden, holde, pp. 1. Earlier past partici- 
ples of hold. 2. Beholden; under obligation ; 
bound. [Now archaic or obsolete in both 
uses.] 
O cruel goddes, that governe 
This world with byndyng of youre word eterne, . . . 
What is mankynde more unto yow holde 
Than is the scheep that rouketh in the folde? 
Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 1. 449. 
holdenlyt, adv. [ME. holdyiilyche; < holden + 
-Z2.] So as to be held; firmly. Halliwell. 
holder (hol'der), n. [< ME. holdere, holders (= 
OFries. haldere = D. houder = MLG. holder = 
OHG. haltari, MHG. haltcere, G. halter, halter = 
Dan. holder (in beholder, husholder) = Sw. hdl- 
lart (in behdllare, hush&llare)); < hold 1 , v., + 
-*)!.] 1. One who or that which holds, in any 
sense of that word. Specifically (a) In common law, 
any one in actual or constructive possession of a bill or 
note, whether as payee, indorsee, or bearer, and entitled, or 
claiming to be entitled, to recover or receive payment of it. 
(l>) Something by or in which a thing is held or contained : 
as, a holder for a flat-iron. 
2. Naut., one who is employed in the hold. 
3. pi. The fangs of a dog. [Prov. Eng.] 4. 
pi. Sheaves placed as ridges on corn-stacks to 
hold the corn down before the thatching takes 
place. [Prov. Eng.] Clue-holder, an implement 
formerly employed to support a clue or ball of thread used 
by a knitter. It was a hook, usually of metal, and arranged 
to be secured to the girdle or other part of the dress. 
hqlder-forth (hol'der -forth'), n. ; pi. holders- 
forth. One who holds forth; a haranguer; a 
preacher. 
The squire, observing the preciseness of their dress, be- 
gan now to imagine, after all, that this was a nest of sec- 
taries. ... He was confirmed in this opinion upon seeing 
a conjurer, whom he guessed to be the holderforth. 
Addison, Foxhunter at a Masquerade. 
holdfast (hold'fast), n. and a. [< hold 1 , v., + 
fast 1 , adv. Of. avast.'} I. n. 1. That which 
is used to secure and hold something in place ; 
a catch; a hook; a clamp. 
The high constable is the thumb, as one would zay, 
The holdfast o' the rest. E. Jomoii, Tale of a Tub, iv. 2. 
2. Support; hold. 
Stones, trees, and beasts, in love still firmer proove 
Then man ; lie none ; no hold-Sautes in your loves. 
Marston, What you Will, v. 1. 
His holdfast was gone, his footing lost. 
Bp. ttountagu, Appeal to Cajsar, p. 18. 
II. t a. Holding fast ; firm ; steady. Davies. 
O Goodnesse, let me (Badnesse) thee embrace 
With hold-fast armes of euer-lasting loue. 
Dacies, Muse's Sacrifice, p. 12. 
holdfastness (hold'fast-nes), n. [< holdfast + 
-ness.'] Tenacity. [Bare.] 
English solidity and holdfastness. Our New West, p. 466. 
hold-gang (hold'gang), n. Naut., a gang of 
men working in the hold of a vessel. 
holding (hol'ding), re. [< ME. holdinge, hald- 
inge; verbal 11. of hold*-, v.] 1. The act of keep- 
ingor retaining. 2. A tenure. 3. That which 
islield. Specifically (a) Lands held byone person; es- 
pecially, lauds held under a superior. 
The Winslow [manor] virgates were intermixed, and each 
was a holding of a messuage in the village, and between 30 
and 40 modern acres of land, not contiguous, but scattered 
in half -acre pieces all over the common fields. 
Seebohm, Eng. Vil. Community, p. 27. 
(6) pi. Property in general, especially stocks and bonds. 
Documents representing holdings in foreign government 
debts, where there is nothing but a lien on certain supposed 
property, held by persons unknown, in a region never vis- 
ited. B. Spencer, Prin. of Psychol., 515. 
4f. The burden or chorus of a song. 
The boy shall sing ; 
The holding every man shall bear as loud 
As his strong sides can volley. 
Shak., A. and C., it 7. 
5. That which holds, binds, or influences; hold; 
influence; power. [Bare.] 
Everything would be drawn from its holdings in the 
country to the personal favour and inclination of the 
prince. Burke, On Present Discontents. 
Agricultural Holdings Acts. See agricultural. 
holding-ground (hol'ding-ground), n. Xaut., 
anchoring-ground; especially, good anchoring- 
ground, where the anchors will not drag. 
2856 
Extreme depths of water, one hundred fathoms being 
often found right up to the shore, with generally very 
foul holding-ground where the depths are more moderate. 
Science, X. 47. 
hole 1 (hol), a. and n. [I. a. < ME. hoi (rare), 
< AS. hol = OFries. hol = OD. D. hol = MLG. 
hol, LG. holl = OHG. MHG. hol, G. hohl = Icel. 
lioli- = Dan. hill (Sw. h&l-ig), adj., hollow (an 
adj. replaced in E. by hollow, which in AS. is 
exclusively a noun, AS. holh, liolg, a hole, a 
hollow, appar. a derivative (with unusual form- 
ative -/O of the adj. hol), from the verb rep- 
resented by AS. Jtelan (pp. Jtolen), ME. helen, E. 
heal' 2 , hide, cover, = L. celare, hide, conceal: 
see heal 2 , hell 1 , helfe, hollow 1 , hoik, etc., and con- 
ceal, cell, etc. The Gr. Koltof, hollow (see ceelo-), 
goes with L. cavus (see cave 1 , cuye) ; it is not 
connected with hole 1 or hollow 1 . II. n. Early 
mod. E. also hoole, houle, howle; < ME. hole, hool, 
hol, < AS. hol, a hole, hollow, cavity, cave, den, 
= OFries. hol = OD. D. hol = MLG. hol, LG. 
holl = OHG. MHG. hol = Icel. hol = Sw. h&l = 
Dan. hul, a hole ; orig. neut. of adj. ; AS. also 
hola, m., = OHG. holi, MHG. hiile, G. lifilile = 
Icel. hola, t., = Dan. hule = Sw. hala, a hole, a 
cave, cf. Goth, hulundi, a hollow, a cave ; from 
the adj. Seel.] I. a. 1. Hollow; deep; con- 
cave. [Now only prov. Eng.] 
So it felle that a knyghte of Macedoyne that hyste Ze- 
phllus fand water standynge in an holle stane, that was 
gadird thare of the dewe of the hevene. 
MS. Lincoln, A. L 17, f. 27. (IlaHiweU.) 
2. Hollow ; hungry. [Prov. Eng.] 
II. n. 1. A hollow place or cavity in a solid 
body ; a perforation, orifice, aperture, pit, rent, 
or crevice. 
Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in 
the lid of it. 2 Ki. xiL 9. 
Then up she raise, pat on her claes, 
And lookit out through the lock hole. 
Lochmaben Harper (Child s Ballads, VI. 6). 
All the oldest Asiatic tombs seem to have been mere 
holes in the rock, wholly without architectural decora- 
tions. J. Fergusson, Hist. Arch., I. 351. 
2. The excavated habitation of certain wild 
animals, as the fox, the badger, etc. ; a burrow. 
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests. 
Mat viii. 20. 
Hence 3. A narrow, dark, or obscure lodging 
or place ; especially, an obscure lodging for one 
in hiding, or a secret room for a prohibited or 
disreputable business, as for counterfeiting, un- 
licensed printing, liquor-selling, etc. : as, a rum- 
hole. 
At a Catholique house, he [Charles II.] was fain to lie 
in the priests hole a good while in the house for his pri- 
vacy. Ptpw, Diary, May 23, 1660. 
The strangest hole I ever was in has been to-day at a 
place called Portici, where his Sicilian Majesty has a 
country-seat. Gray, Letters, I. 82. 
Many Printers for Lucre of Gain have gone into Holes, 
and then their chief care is to get a Hole Private, and 
Workmen Trusty and Cunning to conceal the Hole and 
themselves. Moxon, Mech. Exercises, p. 380. 
4f. The hollow interior of a ship : now called, 
by corruption, the hold. See hold a . 
When you let anything downe into the howle, lowering 
it by degrees, they say, Amaine ; and being down, Strike. 
Smith, Seaman's Gram., vii. 33. (K. E. D.) 
We . . . vsed them kindly, yet got them away with all 
the speede we could, that they should not be perceiued 
by them in the houle. 
Quoted in Capt. John Smith's Works, I. 111. 
5. An indentation in the coast; a cove, or small 
harbor, as Holmes's Hole in Martha's Vineyard, 
and Wood's Hole on the coast opposite ; a nar- 
row passage or waterway between two islands, 
as Robinson's Hole, in the same region, in 1875 
the name Wood's Bole was changed to Wood's Soil, in 
conformity with the (unfounded) supposition that hole in 
such local names is a corruption of a Norse word holl, 
meaning ' hill ' (see etymology of hilll), introduced by the 
Norsemen in the tenth century, and preserved from that 
remote period by the American Indians. 
This [flag] was to be raised at a good anchoring place 
called Five-Fathom Hole. 
Ellis, Voyage to Hudson's Bay (1748), p. 149. 
6. A level grassy area surrounded by moun- 
tains : a word formerly much in use and still cur- 
rent in the northern parts of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. Such places are also sometimes called parks, and 
occasionally, in certain regions, basins. The use of the 
term hole implies a more complete isolation and environ- 
ment of mountains than does that of basin. Part is a more 
familial 1 name for localities of this kind in the southern 
Rocky Mountains. 
7. Apuzzlingsituation; ascrape; afix. [Colloq.] 
I should take great pleasure in serving you, and get- 
ting you out of this hole, but my Lord, you know, is a 
great man, and can, in a manner, do what he pleases with 
poor people. C. Johnston, Chrysal, I. 132. 
A hole In one's coat, figuratively, a flaw in one's reputa- 
tion ; a weak spot in one's character. 
holethnos 
I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly 
make snow to the orld he is ; if I find a hole in his coat, I 
will tell him my mind. Shak., Hen. V., ill. 6. 
If there's a hole in a 1 your coats, 
I rede you tent it : 
A chiel's amang ye takin' notes, 
An', faith, he'll prent it. 
Burns, Captain Grose's Peregrinations. 
Blind holes, bobstay holes, etc. See the qualifying 
words. Dead holes, shallow holes in cast-iron. Fox In 
the holet. See /ozi. Hole in the sky. Same as coal- 
sack, 2. The holet, the name of one of the worst apart- 
ments in the Counter prison in Wood street, London. 
I shall never find the way out again : my debts, my 
debts ! I'm like to die i' tK Hole now. 
Uiddleton, The Widow, ii. 2. 
He is deni'de the freedome of,the prison, 
And in the hole is laide with men condemn'd. 
Heywood, Woman Killed with Kindness. 
Toad In the hole, roast beef served with Yorkshire pud- 
ding. To crawl Into one's hole, to retire defeated: used 
especially of an aggressor who is worsted. [Colloq.] To 
put (or get) one In a hole, to get one into a position 
from which he cannot easily or honorably extricate him- 
self. [Slang.] = Syn. 1. Opening, cave, cavity, excavation, 
hollow. 3. Den, kennel, hovel. 
hole 1 (hol), v. ; pret. and pp. holed, ppr. holing. 
[< ME. holen, holien, < AS. holian, hollow out, 
make hollow, dig a hole (= D. uit-liolen = G. 
hohlen = Icel. hola, make hollow, = Dan. ud- 
hule = Goth, us-hulon, hollow out, excavate), < 
hol, a., hollow, hol, n., a hole: see hole 1 , a. and n., 
and of. toBov 1 !*.] I. trans. 1. To cut, dig, or 
make a hole or holes in: as, to hole a post for 
the insertion of rails or bars; to hole a flute. 
With throwing of the holed stone, with hurling of their 
darts. Chapman, Iliad, ii. 
Doors still holed with the musketry. 
Carlyle, in Froude, II. 191. 
2. To drive into a hole. 3. In mining: (a) To 
connect two workings with each other. (6) In 
coal-mining, to undercut the coal, or pick away 
the lower part of the seam, so that that which is 
above can be thrown down by means of wedges 
or by the use of powder. 
II. intrans. 1. To go into a hole, as an ani- 
mal into its den or burrow. 
I ha' you in a purse-net, 
Good master Picklocke, wi' your worming bralne, 
And wrigling ingine-head of maintenance, 
Which I shall see you hole with very shortly. 
B. Jonson, Staple of News, v. 2. 
2. Specifically, to retire into a den or burrow 
for the winter: said of a hibernating animal. 
hole 2 t, a. The former and more correct spell- 
ing of whole. 
hole-and-corner (hol'and-kor'ner), a. Clan- 
destine; underhand. 
Such is the wretched trickery of hole-and-corner bnffery ! 
These are not its only artifices. Dickens, Pickwick, 11. 
hole-dove (hol'duv), . [Tr. G. hohltaube.] 
Same as stock-dove. [Rare.] 
holefult, . Same as healful. 
holer 1 (ho'ler), H. [< hole 1 + -er 1 .] In mining, 
one who undercuts the coal-seam, generally for 
two or three feet inward (but sometimes for as 
much as four or even five), with a light pick, and 
then by driving in wedges breaks away the parts 
that have been holed. 
holer 2 t, holourt, . [ME., also holier, huler, 
hullar, etc., < OF. holier, houlier, holour, holeur 
(ML. hullarius), a ribald, debauchee, < hole, 
houle, a place of debauch, a brothel.] A ribald ; 
a rake ; a scoundrel. 
Holeraceae (hol-er-a'se-e), n. pi. [NL., fern. pi. 
of L. holeraceus, prop, oleraceus, herb-like, < ho- 
lits, prop, olus (oler-), herbs, vegetables.] The 
fifty-third order in the natural system of plants 
proposed by Linnreus, containing Spinacia, Her- 
niaria, CalUtriche, etc., genera that are now re- 
ferred to widely separated natural orders. 
hole-Stitch (hol'stich), re. A stitch used in 
making pillow-lace to form small round open- 
ings in the thick parts of the pattern. 
holett, . [ME., < hole 1 + -ft.] A little hole. 
The! entriden ... in to a litel holet that was the west 
part of the tabernacle. Wyclif, Select Works, II. 281. 
And he hadd grete merveylle, and asked thame if thay 
hadd any other howsez, and thay ansuerde and said, nay, 
bot in thir holettez duelle we alwaye, and in thir caves. 
MS. Lincoln, A. i. 17, f. 30. (Halliwell.) 
holethnic (ho-leth'nik), a. [< holethnos + -ic.~\ 
Pertaining or relating to a holethnos, or parent 
race. 
The holethnic history of the Aryans. The Academy. 
holethnos (ho-leth'nos), n. [< Gr. o/of, entire, 
whole, + idvof, nation.] A primitive or parent 
stock or race of people not yet divided into 
separate tribes or branches. 
It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the various 
Aryan nations of historical times are, linguistically speak- 
ing, descended from a single primitive tribe, conveniently 
