Word of the Day Archive
Wednesday April 17, 2002
beholden \bih-HOHL-duhn\ , adjective:
Obliged; bound in gratitude; indebted.
Kate was quite fond of him and knew he was grateful to her for all the help and hospitality she and Oliver had given him during his period of gloom and puzzlement after his wife's defection, but she did not want him to feel beholden to her.
-- Mary Sheepshanks, Picking Up the Pieces
The likely new government, which draws only a negligible level of support from rural areas, will be much less beholden to the farming interests than any government in the past two decades.
-- "Reforming The EU Budget", Irish Times, October 8, 1998
Peter did not intend to be beholden to any of his relatives unless they proved their worth.
-- Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
Beholden is derived from Old English behealden, "to hold firmly," from be-, intensive prefix + healden, "to hold."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for beholden
