Underhold

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To keep something in one's possession or deliberately hold it back from others, typically in an old-fashioned or rare usage
2. To withhold, detain, or refrain from giving or releasing something that one possesses, especially in an obsolete or seldom-used sense
3. To purposely retain or not let go of something, an archaic form referring to keeping something from others

Etymology: "Underhold" is a plain compound, built from the prefix "under-" and the verb "hold." The sense of "keep from others" grows naturally from that pairing: to hold something under, or in a lower or concealed position, is to keep it out of sight and out of general reach. The same kind of pairing appears in German, where "unterhalten" means "to maintain" and shares the under-plus-hold construction, though the two words have drifted apart in meaning.