Withholding

How to spell withholding

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce withholding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does withholding mean?

1. verbThe act of deliberately keeping back something owed, due, or expected, such as money, consent, or information.
2. nounMoney, especially income tax, that an employer deducts from wages and pays directly to the tax authority.

Withholding in a sentence

• verb

  The landlord was accused of withholding the deposit without good reason.

• noun

  Check your payslip to see how much withholding was taken from this month's pay.

• verb

  By withholding key facts from the report, she misled the whole committee.

• noun

  The company adjusted his withholding after he updated his tax form.

Where does withholding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb withhealdan, formed from with, which here carries its older sense of 'back' or 'against' rather than 'alongside', joined to healdan, meaning 'to hold or keep'. The literal idea was therefore 'to hold back', and that core meaning has barely shifted in a thousand years. The 'with' element is the same one preserved in 'withstand' and 'withdraw', where it again means 'against' or 'back' rather than 'together with'. The doubled h that trips so many writers is simply the result of welding 'with' directly onto 'hold': the final h of 'with' meets the initial h of 'hold', and English keeps both. Picturing those two separate building blocks, 'with' plus 'hold', is the surest way to remember why the spelling needs two h letters in a row.

How the word is built

• with- (back, away)
• hold (to keep, retain)
• -ing (present participle / verbal noun)