Oferhealdan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to hold back, restrain or withhold something from someone ; to keep a person or people under control, subjection or rule
2. An archaic verb for restraining or keeping something back from someone ; for governing or keeping others under one's dominion and authority
3. Used in Old English to mean withholding or holding something back ; also meaning to exercise control over people by ruling or subduing them

Etymology: Old English "oferhealdan" was a verb built from two ordinary words: "ofer", meaning "over", and "healdan", meaning "to hold". Together they meant roughly "to hold over", in the sense of keeping something back, restraining it, or withholding it. The compound did not survive into Modern English. Its second half did, in the form "hold", which descends from "healdan", but the prefixed verb was lost. English later expressed similar ideas with separate phrases such as "hold back" and "hold over", built from the same parts but arranged differently, so the old meaning lives on in those phrases rather than in a single word.