• beholden •
Pronunciation: bi-hol-dên • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Obliged, under legal or moral obligation, duty bound, indebted.
Notes: Here is a word that seems built on a wholly unrelated word. It is actually the past participle of behold in the sense of "hold under obligation", though the prefix be- doesn't mean "under obligation". Behold today means "see, be aware of", another word seemingly unrelated to hold.
In Play: We are all beholden to someone or something: "American men are realizing how much they are all beholden to women for their welfare and successes." Indebtedness is particularly relevant to politics: "Politicians beholden to their major contributors are slowly being replaced by candidates who crowdsource their campaigns, and are beholden only to their constituents."
Word History: Today's Good Word remains something of a mystery. Some etymologists trace it back to PIE kel-/kol- "to drive (quickly)" under the assumption that this word originally referred to herders, who had to drive herds of domestic animals to and from grazing grounds. Eventually, the sense of the word migrated to other tasks of herders: looking after herds (a meaning hold had in Old English) would provide the visual sense of behold, and holding them together. The sense of indebtedness, "hold in debt", would fit right in here. If we wish to stretch our imaginations that far, we find substantiation of the PIE word in Albanian qel "in a flash", Greek kellein "to drive on", German halten "to hold, stop", Latin celer "quick", Danish holde "to hold", and Dutch houden "to hold".
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