hold

hold vb

1 hold back, withhold, reserve, detain, retain, *keep, keep back, keep out

Analogous words: *restrain, inhibit, curb, check: preserve, conserve, *save

Contrasted words: *relinquish, surrender, abandon, resign, yield

2 *contain, accommodate

Analogous words: *carry, bear, convey: *receive, admit, take: house, lodge, *harbor, shelter: *include, comprehend

3 *have, own, possess, enjoy

Analogous words: control, direct, manage, *conduct

hold n Hold, grip, grasp, clutch are comparable when they denote the power of getting or of keeping something in possession or under control.

Hold is the most comprehensive of these terms, for it may apply to material, immaterial, or intangible matters and may imply mere possession or control or possession and control securely maintained

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lay hold on the deserters

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lost his hold on the side of the boat

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keep his hold on the property in dispute

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kept a hold on himself

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afraid they may lose their hold on the domestic market— Sydney Bulletin

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the hold of the public school upon the middle-class mind has not weakened— Lewis & Maude

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Grip primarily implies the power of taking hold of by the hand, but in its secondary senses it definitely suggests a firm and tenacious hold (as on a country by an oppressor, on a person's system by a disease, or on a body of facts or principles by an eager mind)

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he clutched Father Joseph's hand with a grip surprisingly strong— Cather

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the country was on the verge of bankruptcy and in the grip of a series of... insurrections— London Calling

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his interest . . . has been to strengthen the voters' grip on governmental machinery. A. D. H. Smith

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moreover habits acquired very early feel, in later life, just like instincts; they have the same profound grip— Russell

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Grasp implies the power to reach out and get possession or control of something; in its basic applications it may be distinguished with difficulty from grip

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did not expect to feel his hand snatched away from her grasp as if from a burn— Conrad

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but in its now more common extended applications especially to what can be possessed by the mind it frequently distinctively connotes remarkable powers of comprehension on the one hand or outstanding range of mastery on the other

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ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?— Browning

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his grasp of the singular entirety of medieval civilization— Cram

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what competent person supposes that he understands a grain of sand? That is as much beyond our grasp as man— Justice Holmes

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Gray and Collins were masters, but they had lost that hold on human values, that firm grasp of human experience, which is a formidable achievement of the Elizabethan and Jacobean poets— T. S. Eliot

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Clutch basically implies a seizing and holding with the avidity or rapacity of or as if of a bird of prey

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a rabbit in the clutch of an owl

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In its extended use it stresses, far more than any of the preceding nouns, the notion of control as distinguished from possession

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fell into a usurer's clutches

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in the clutch of a great fear

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in the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud— Henley

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or that of the act or fact of grasping with violence, with effort, or with frantic determination (as under the impulsion of terror)

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in the clutches of a desperate infatuation— Schwartz

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the clutch of a drowning man at a straw

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I can't hold on ten seconds more . . . my clutch is going now— Marryat

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in the dry, womanless clutch of the army— Irwin Shaw

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Analogous words: possession, ownership (see corresponding verbs at HAVE): control, command, *power, authority