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Retain vs Offhold - What's the difference?

retain | offhold |

In lang=en terms the difference between retain and offhold

is that retain is to hold secure while offhold is to hold off; prevent; refrain; avoid; shun.

As verbs the difference between retain and offhold

is that retain is to keep in possession or use while offhold is (archaic) to retain.

retain

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To keep in possession or use.
  • * Milton
    • Be obedient, and retain / Unalterably firm his love entire.
  • * 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
    • A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually thinking of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this image fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. Yet every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into decay in his arms.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}
  • To keep in one's pay or service.
  • * Addison
    • A Benedictine convent has now retained the most learned father of their order to write in its defence.
  • To employ by paying a retainer.
  • To hold secure.
  • (obsolete) To restrain; to prevent.
  • (obsolete) To belong; to pertain.
  • * Boyle
    • A somewhat languid relish, retaining to bitterness.

    Synonyms

    * keep

    Related terms

    * retainer, retention

    Anagrams

    * *

    offhold

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Verb

  • (archaic) To retain.
  • To hold off; prevent; refrain; avoid; shun.
  • *1950 , Washington Institute of Medicine, General practice clinics :
    • A scleral rim should be maintained in contact lenses to off-hold and balance the corneal portion from the cornea, preventing exertion of any pressure.
  • *1968 , Titus Maccius Plautus, Paul Nixon, Plautus :
    • No, Love, you must be shunned by every means, offheld and offstood afar, for the man that has fallen headlong into love comes o greater grief than if he cast himself off a cliff.
  • *2009 , A.J.J. Mekking, Eric Roose, The global built environment as a representation of realities :
    • The mighty foundation of massive natural stone, in the Mediterranean realm, in India as well as in Middle- and South America, almost always represents the world of the toiling earthlings who have to off-hold the demons of depth as well as to support their god-miming oppressors.