Hold your horses, phr. (American).—Go easy; don't get excited: a general injunction to calm in act and speech.
Hold your jaw, phr. (colloquial).—Hold your tongue; STOW YOUR GAB (q.v.).
Hold hard! (or on)! intj. (colloquial).—Wait a moment! don't be in a hurry!
1761. Colman, Jealous Wife, V., in Wks. (1777), i., 130. Hold hard! hold hard! you are all on a wrong scent.
1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 280. 'Hold hard!' said the conductor; 'I'm blowed if we ha'n't forgot the gen'lm'n as vas to be set down at Doory-lane.'
1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. iv., p. 38 (1873). I told Meaburn to hold on, and we'd get a rise out of Punch.
Hold-stitch.—See Stitch.
Hold-water.—See Water.
Hold-out, subs. (gambling).—An
old-fashioned apparatus, in poker,
for 'holding out' desirable cards.
Hole (venery).—1. The female pudendum.
Also, Hole of Content,
and Hole (or Queen) of
Holes. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
TO GIVE A HOLE TO
HIDE IT IN = TO GRANT THE
FAVOUR (q.v.). [Hence, by a
play upon words, Holy of
Holies.]
1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, ii., 4. This drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble (q.v.) in a hole.
1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Carnafau, the brat-getting place, or HOLE OF CONTENT.
1620. Percy, Folio MS., p. 197. . . . He light in a hole ere he was aware!
1647-80. Rochester, Poems. Thou mighty princess, lovely queen of holes.
d. 1649. Drummond, Posthumous Poems, 'The Statue of Alcides.' Fair nymph, in ancient days, your holes, by far, Were not so hugely vast as now they are.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., iv., 72. It has a head much like a Mole's, And yet it loves to creep in holes: The fairest She that e'er took Life, For love of this became a Wife.
2. (old).—A cell; cf., Hell, sense 1.
1540. Lindsay, Thrie Estaits, line 1016. Wee have gart bind him with ane poill, And send him to the theifis hoill.
1607. Miseries of Enforced Marriage, III., I. (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875. ix., 514). If you shall think . . . it shall accord with the state of gentry to submit myself from the feather-bed in the master's side, or the flock-bed in the knight's ward, to the straw-bed in the hole.
1607. Wentworth Smith, The Puritan, iii. But if e'er we clutch him again the Counter shall charm him. Rav. The hole shall rot him.
1657. Walks of Hogsdon. Next from the stocks, the hole, and little-ease.
1663. Killigrew, The Parson's Wedding, iv., 2 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 482). Make his mittymus to the hole at Newgate.
3. (old).—A private printing office where unlicensed books were made; a cock-robin shop (q.v.).—Moxon, 1683.
4. (colloquial).—A difficulty; a fix; on the turf, to be in a hole = to lose (a bet) or be defeated (of horses).
1760-61. Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, ch. xvi. I should be in a deadly hole myself if all my customers should take it into their heads to drink nothing but water-gruel.
1868. Ouida, Under Two Flags, ch. i. 'I am in a hole—no end of a hole.
5. (common).—A place of abode; specifically, a mean habitation; a dirty lodging. For synonyms, see Diggings.
6. (common).—The rectum: short for arse-hole. E.g., suck his hole = a derisive retort upon an affirmative answer to the
