holdback

See also: hold back

English

Etymology

From hold +‎ back.

Noun

holdback (plural holdbacks)

1. restraint; a device or part of a device that operates to restrain.

   Coordinate terms: holddown, tiedown

   • 1914, Frank L. O. Wadsworth, “1103232: Furnace Grate”, in Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, page 399:

     In a furnace, the combination of an upwardly moving holdback and a downwardly moving dumping grate, of interconnected means for conjointly elevating said holdback and partially lowering said grate and then oscillating said grate without appreciably moving said holdback.

   • 1972, Direct Support and General Support Maintenance Manual, page 35:

     The holdback hook assembly is made up of four key parts : the missile holdback hook (1), missile latch finger (4), missile latch lever (6) and eccentric shaft (B).

   • 1998, Robert Brenner, Gregory Capelo, VCR Troubleshooting and Repair, page 350:

     If the forward holdback tension is not within allowable limits, the TV will display a flagging or tearing picture at the top of the screen.

   • 2008, A-7 Corsair Pilot's Flight Operating Manual, pages 1-92:

     Accessories for the catapulting system include a tension bar and a catapult holdback bar.

   1. The projection or loop, on the thill of a vehicle, to which a strap of the harness is attached, to hold back a carriage when going downhill, or in backing. Also, the strap or part of the harness so used.
      • 1861, John Davis, “No. 2551: Holdback for Carriages and other Vehicles”, in Letters patent - Volume 15:

        All those devices, which heretofore have been constructed, wherein a spring has been applied as part of the holdback, are subject to derangement, owing to the uncertain action of the spring employed, and a liability of the sprint to get out of order, thus detracting from their efficiency.

      • 1871, George J. Letchworth, “116725: Improvement in Hames”, in Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the United States Patent Office:

        The object of my improvement is to obtain a draft and holdback attachment for hames which will be more durable and answer the purpose better than the old two-pronged staple or the circular clip.

      • 1906, Hallock R. McDonald and Laruin R. Cope, “No 1o1803: Holdback for Harness”, in The Canadian Patent Office Record and Register of Copyrights:

        A holdback for harness comprising a holdback strap and a socket or thimble consisting of a tapering leather body portion, a core tapered within the smaller end of the body portion, a tapered metal tip fitted to the core and receiving and engaging the adjacent end of the leather body portion and clamping the same on the core and fastening devices piercing the tip and the leather body portion and securing the same to the core.

   • 2014, Steve Bowers, Marlen Steward, Driving Horses:

     Before going through the buckle, make sure the holdback strap passes over the trace so the trace is encompassed by the holdback strap.

2. A delay in the movement of solute due to the slowing effects of diffusion
   • 1969, Harry D. Surline, Longitudinal Liquid Mixing in a Packed Column with Cocurrent Or Countercurrent Air-water Flow, page 50:

     Holdback is easier to determine than the dispersion coefficient, and where scatter of data is serious, mixing properties are easier to describe in terms of holdback.

   • 2011, Jan Gliński, Józef Horabik, Jerzy Lipiec, Encyclopedia of Agrophysics, page 423:

     Holdback can also be seen as protecting solute-free water against invading solute.

   • 2022, H. Magdi Selim, Liwang Ma, Physical Nonequilibrium in Soils: Modeling and Application, page 225:

     The concepts of preferential flow and mobile and immobile water are related to each other and to that of the holdback of solute against leaching.

3. (accounting) Income that is set aside for eventualities such as customer returns, seasonal fluctuations, performance bonuses, unexpected costs, etc.
   • 1995, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies, Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, And Independen Agencies Appropriations for 1996:

     The community Opportunity Bonus Fund incorporates a $250 million bonus pool, which would operate in the same manner as the original performance holdback.

   • 2004, Joseph Boyett, Jimmie Boyett, The Gainsharing Design Manual, page 55:

     When there is a holdback provision, the percentage placed in reserve by gainsharing plans typically ranges from a low of 10 percent to as much as 70 percent.

   • 2010, Barry J. Epstein, Ralph Nach, Steven M. Bragg, Wiley GAAP: Interpretation and Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, page 201:

     The customer return privilege period expires and the remaining holdback is paid to the transferor.

4. A portion of the money that is owed to someone which is not paid, but instead held as security, until the entire job or contract has been successfully completed.
   • 1968, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the District of Columbia, Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia:

     Holdback arrangements may be viewed as the reverse of kickbacks. There were nine retailers who reported a holdback requirement by finance companies.

   • 1977, Federal Register - Volume 42, Issues 1-5, page 763:

     The proposed amendments to the regulation provided a procedure whereby the contractor's 10 percent holdback would be retained by the mortgagee to be paid into an escrow account, minus certain amounts, when the project has been substantially completed, as determined by HUD .

   • 1990, Job Corps, Policy and Requirements Handbook, page 35:

     If the contract contains a fee holdback provision, the total amount of fee earned will be recorded as expenses, but vouchering will be subject to the holdback provisioned.

   • 1993, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Practice, Professional Fees in Bankruptcy, page 225:

     In this situation, the courts reason that a holdback, which attempts to limit interim compensation allowances to the probable pro rata distribution that administrative expense claimants would receive at the end of the case, would likely prevent those administrative claimants not eligible for interim compensation from being unduly prejudiced by the interim allowances made to professionals.

   • 2017, Michael E. S. Frankel, Larry H. Forman, Mergers and Acquisitions Basics, page 256:

     Escrows are similar to holdbacks in purpose, but the difference is that the money is paid to an independent third party at closing and held in trust.

5. Money that a buyer does not pay at the time of purchase, but which is paid afterward (sometimes in installments, sometimes on a specified date).
   • 1991, James A. Rosenthal, Juan M. Ocampo, Securitization of Credit: Inside the New Technology of Finance:

     Accordingly, credit enhancement was provided by a 7.5 percent "holdback" whereby the purchasers withheld 7.5 percent of the purchase price at the closing.

   • 2005, Philip Martinius, M & A: Protecting the Purchaser, page 40:

     The simplest way for the buyer to obtain protection is to agree on a holdback. This means that the buyer on closing only pays part of the purchase price and retains additional installment(s) for a certain period of time.

   • 2023, Bill Snow, Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies, page 169:

     Most M & A deals include a holdback, or an amount the buyer withholds from the seller for a period of time just in case the company has some sort of problem (called a breach) after the deal closes.

6. (car sales) The difference between a dealer's cost and the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
   • 1973, Reports of the United States Tax Court - Volume 60, page 886:

     The discount holdback is a part of the overall discount enjoyed by all dealers of Dodge vehicles, and it is inconspicuously noted on each invoice that petitioner receives. The purpose of the discount holdback is to place Dodge dealers in a better competititve position with their rivals by placing an artifically high floor on the invoice cost of new vehicles and making it appear that each vehicle costs the dealer more than it actually does.

   • 1993, William Bragg, In the Driver's Seat: The New Car Buyer's Negotiating Bible, page 82:

     Holdback was instituted in the early 1960s, we understand, as a way to ensure that dealers would have money on hand to pay Uncle Sam at tax time.

   • 2008, Brian Munroe, Car Buying Revealed:

     As you will see, most manufacturers have holdbacks. Take the invoice and subtract the holdback to find the starting price of the car.

7. A time period during which sales of a specific security or commodity cannot occur.
   • 2003, Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law, page 221:

     Schedule 1.02 should list each Shareholder and the Shareholder's proportional share of the Purchase Price, including the amounts scheduled to be distributed from the Escrow Fund after the holdback period has expired.

   • 2007, United States. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC Docket - Volume 90, Part 2, page 1772:

     Rather than disseminating each individual change, the holdback timer permits CBOE to wait until multiple market participants have adjusted their quotes and then to disseminate a new quotation.

   • 2012, California Advance Sheet February 2012:

     Chang initially signed documents including a Purchase and Sale Agreement (Agreement) and Memorandum of Agreement (Memorandum) that provided for a 12-month holdback period for the $5 million, but instructed L.A. Pacific employee Eddy Chao that the holdback period must be extended to 60 months.

   • 2020, Jack S. Levin, Donald E. Rocap, Structuring Venture Capital:

     The underwriters undoubtedly require that Portfolio Comapany and each major holder of Portfolio Company restricted stock (and possibly each holder who was offered the opportunity to participate in the SEC registration, whether or not such holder actually does sell in the offering) agree not to sell additional Portfolio Company stock (including under SEC Rule 144) for a specified (and often lengthy, e.g., 180-day) period after the underwritten IPO (a "holdback period"). Indeed a registration rights agreement (often entered into years earlier when PE/VC and others made their original invesments in Portfolio Company stock (other than in the underwritten IPO) during any such underwriter's holdback period.

8. A time period after the first release of a creative work before it can be distributed or adapted to other channels.
   • 2007, Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee, New media and the creative industries:

     It called for a rights framework which delivered a "clear, consistent and timely rights regime for all platforms" and minimum holdback periods.

   • 2014, Thomas A. Crowell, The Pocket Lawyer for Comic Book Creators:

     Reserved rights are often subject to holdback provisions . A holdback provision requires a copyright or other rights owner to refrain from licensing certain rights for a limited period of time .

   • 2018, Scott Kirkpatrick, Introduction to Media Distribution:

     That said, some contracts will require a minimum number of hours before the 'day-after' window takes effect –some will clearly require a 24-hour holdback, but others may only require two hours (allowing a full premiere block).

9. A legal provision for restricting distributions to a trust beneficiary under certain conditions.
   • 1980, The Annual Institute on Estate Planning, pages 5-19:

     If such a holdback provision applies to income being paid from a life estate power of appointment trust (or to the exercisability of the general power of appointment of such a trust), which has been created either to qualify for the marital deduction or the orphan's deduction, obviously such a holdback clause will disqualify the property in a trust for the deduction.

   • 1998, Sidney Kess, Barbara Weltman ·, KESS on Financial and Estate Planning, page 77:

     A holdback provision gives the trustee discretion to hold back funds upon the occurrence of specified events.

   • 2015, Wayne M. Gazur, Robert M. Phillips, Estate Planning: Principles and Problems:

     Depending upon the degree of discretion the settler wants to grant to the trustee, these holdback provisions may either permit the trustee to suspend distributions in the trustee's discretion (a permissive holdback) or require the trustee to suspend distributions (a restrictive holdback).

10. The withholding of permits to extract a natural resource.
    • 1968, United States. Congress. House Committee on Appropriations, Hearings - Volume 9, page 41:

      It is only a holdback for resource development, and with the increasing use by people of these resources, it is coming to a critical stage, Mr. Secretary, it doesn't seem to me that we are going to be able to hold back too much longer.

    • 1974, United States. Congress. Senate. Governmental Operations Committee, To Establish a Department of Energy and Natural Resources, Energy Research and Develoopment Administration, and a Nuclear Safety and Licensing Commission:

      You have the question of the supposed holdback of the allocations, and yet the law allows you and the President to alter the allocation without a change of law for 90 days.

    • 2016, B. Timothy Heinmiller, Water Policy Reform in Southern Alberta, page 206:

      Thus far, the amount of environmental water recovered through conservation holdbacks has been relatively small.

11. A designation of some details about a crime that the police deliberately do not reveal to the public.
    • 2016, Michael Arntfield, Gothic Forensics, page 92:

      The result was less a policy as much as a culture of information management among the inner sanctum of detectives working an open and active case, on in which there were strict safeguards placed around what became a nearly universal policy in holdback evidence.

    • 2020, Christopher Lutes, “Hart Failure: Assessing the Mr. Big Confessions Framework Five Years Later”, in Manitoba Law Journal: Criminal Law Edition, page 218:

      The probative value of this kind of evidence is often overstated, as holdback evidence can be transmitted to the accused via prior interactions with the police.

    • 2021, Mark Stobbe, The “Mr. Big” Sting:

      The need to verify Mr. Big disclosures has helped make "holdback evidence” a routine part of homicide investigations.

12. A random subset of a body of data that is not used in the main analysis, but rather reserved for other purposes, such as validation.
    • 2016, Ian Cox, Marie A. Gaudard, Mia L. Stephens, Visual Six Sigma: Making Data Analysis Lean, page 495:

      In the holdback methods, a sample of the observations is withheld (the holdback sample) while the remaining observations are used to train a neural net.

    • 2017, Ron Klimberg, B. D. McCullough, Fundamentals of Predictive Analytics with JMP:

      Since the holdback sample has different random noise, its calculated error will begin to increase.

    • 2018, Peter H. Rossi, Mark W. Lipsey, Gary T. Henry, Evaluation: A Systematic Approach, page 280:

      If the decision is made to replace any of the refusals with the holdback sample, then all of the holdback sample must be used to maintain a probability sample.

Translations

restraint

• Bulgarian: задръжка (bg) f (zadrǎžka), пречка (bg) f (prečka)

Verb

holdback (third-person singular simple present holdbacks, present participle holdbacking, simple past and past participle holdbacked)

1. To set up a holdback.
   • 1993, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Practice, Professional Fees in Bankruptcy, page 225:

     Only 20 percent of the "debtors' attorney" judges normally don't holdback, compared to 44 percent of the other cohort.

   • 2000, History and Philosophy of Taxation - Volume 46, page 5:

     Trustee given power to holdback distributions if adverse to beneficiary's interest .