“Hold” is irregular: hold → held → held. Its many ordinary and phrasal meanings do not create a different conjugation; the surrounding construction changes meaning, not the past form.
ReviewedEvidence2 sourcesSectionEnglish Usage
Quick answer
The simple past and past participle of “hold” are both “held.”
Key details
Confusion Familyirregular merged past and participle
Rule Familyverb forms
Termshold, held
Variant ScopeBoth simple past and past participle are “held.”
Choose the right form
Decision table for Past Tense of Hold
Meaning / situation
Form / construction
Decision
completed action in simple past
held
Use “held.”
past participle after have/has/had
held
Use “held.”
phrasal or extended sense
held + particle/complement
The same irregular form remains.
Quick tests
Verb-form test
Do you need a past form of “hold”?
If yes: Use “held.”
If no: Use “hold” or “holds” when the sentence is in the present.
Caveat: Phrasal and extended meanings can change what the verb means, but they do not change the standard past form.
Examples
Example
She held the door open for us.
“Held” is the simple past.
Example
They have held the record for three years.
“Held” is the past participle after “have.”
Example
The agreement held up under review.
A phrasal use still takes “held.”
Further guidance
Core difference
Use “held” for completed past actions and in perfect or passive constructions requiring the participle.
Fast Test
If the action is past or the construction requires a participle, use “held” regardless of the ordinary or phrasal sense.
Usage Boundary
Different senses and phrasal constructions of “hold” still use “held”; do not create a regularized “holded.”
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
“Bend” follows the pattern bend → bent → bent. The same inflected form serves a finite simple-past clause and a past-participle construction; surrounding grammar identifies the role. Noun uses such as “a bend” and adjective uses of “bent” are separate from the verb-form decision.
“Bleed” follows the pattern bleed → bled → bled. The same inflected form serves a finite simple-past clause and a past-participle construction; surrounding grammar identifies the role. The verb uses the same irregular form across literal blood-loss and other established verb senses; noun uses are separate.
“Breed” is irregular: breed → bred → bred. The same inflected form serves a finite simple-past clause and a past-participle construction; grammar and surrounding auxiliaries identify the role. The same irregular form applies across reproductive, cultivation, and figurative produce/engender senses, even though those senses remain semantically distinct.
“Bring” follows the pattern bring → brought → brought. The same inflected form serves a finite simple-past clause and a past-participle construction; surrounding grammar identifies the role. The reviewed standard paradigm is bring → brought → brought; avoid unsupported claims about every dialectal or nonstandard form.
“Build” follows the pattern build → built → built. The same inflected form serves a finite simple-past clause and a past-participle construction; surrounding grammar identifies the role. The ordinary irregular paradigm is build → built → built; do not infer an unreviewed regular past form.
“Catch” follows the pattern catch → caught → caught. The same inflected form serves a finite simple-past clause and a past-participle construction; surrounding grammar identifies the role. For ordinary standard uses of the verb, do not regularize the past as “catched”; the reviewed authorities give “caught” for both past roles.
