hold-down

1. 1.

   a limitation or constraint

   “taxpayers want a hold-down on government spending”

   Broaderlimitation

Questions about hold-down

What does hold-down mean?

hold-down means "a limitation or constraint".

How many syllables are in hold-down?

hold-down has 2 syllables and divides as hold--down under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is hold-down a common word?

hold-down is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.