Holding

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈhəʊldɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The act of grasping or keeping control of something ; an item or property that someone owns ; a stake or share in a corporation or business
2. The action of firmly grasping or maintaining possession ; something that is owned or held as property ; a financial share representing ownership in an enterprise
3. The state of physically keeping hold of an object ; any asset or property in a person's possession ; ownership interest in a company commonly represented by shares

Etymology: The word "holding" is built from "hold" plus the suffix "-ing," and its most familiar sense, a stake or property a person owns, grew out of the verb's older meanings of possessing, keeping, or having. Someone who holds land or shares is, in effect, keeping them, so the noun came to name the thing kept. The sense that surprises most readers is the one tied to business. "Holding company," a firm that owns shares in other firms, gave rise to a shortened use of "holding" on its own, and that shortened form travelled far. In Russian, the same idea was borrowed as "холдинг" (xolding), which is itself a pseudo-anglicism: it looks English, but it was formed in Russian from an ellipsis of "holding company" rather than taken from an English word of that exact form.

Synonyms: grasping, clutching, owning, possessing, maintaining

Antonyms: releasing, letting go, abandoning, dispossessing, renouncing