hold-the-line
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
13 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "hold-the-line", 13-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "hold-the-line" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "hold-the-line" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
hold the line is aEnglishverb. It means: To firmly maintain one's viewpoint, principles, or situation; to refuse to change one's practices or plans.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hold the line |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hold the line is 13 letters long, classified as averb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To firmly maintain one's viewpoint, principles, or situation; to refuse to change one's practices or plans.".
No misspelling variants are generated for hold the line in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Probably an allusion to a line of soldiers remaining steadfastly in position during combat. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is hold the line, spelled H-O-L-D- -T-H-E- -L-I-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To firmly maintain one's viewpoint, principles, or situation; to refuse to change one's practices or plans.
Etymology
Probably an allusion to a line of soldiers remaining steadfastly in position during combat.
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: