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Definition of "hold-down" [hold-down]

  • The act of holding down. (noun)
  • A limit or restraint: "Voters want a hold-down on the Federal budget” ( Newsweek). (noun)
  • Something, such as a clamp, used to hold an object in place. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "hold-down" in a sentence
  • "But whatever the means chosen to hold-down demand for US immigration, the regulations will need to be enforced impartially (as seems obvious to me)."
  • "They regularly do hold-down firings of full stages and full flight vehicles."
  • "I thought many things that hot summer morning of 40 years ago, standing at the then – Cape Kennedy press site, staring at the Apollo Saturn vehicle some 3 miles distant, listening to the quasi-Gregorian countdown chant of "minus 10 seconds, 9, 8 …" until, finally, the powerful first-stage rocket engines had built up enough thrust to pop open the big rocket's hold-down clamps and it began rising slowly, ponderously, into the blue sky."
Words like "hold-down"