Word of the Day

: October 22, 2023

beholden

adjective bih-HOHL-dun

What It Means

Beholden is a formal adjective that describes someone as having obligations to someone or something else, often (but not always) to return a favor or gift. Beholden is usually followed by to.

// She works for herself, and so is beholden to no one.

// Many believe the government is overfull with politicians who are beholden to special interest groups.

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beholden in Context

“We are living through an information revolution. The traditional gatekeepers of knowledge—librarians, journalists and government officials—have largely been replaced by technological gatekeepers—search engines, artificial intelligence chatbots and social media feeds. Whatever their flaws, the old gatekeepers were, at least on paper, beholden to the public. The new gatekeepers are fundamentally beholden only to profit and to their shareholders. That is about to change, thanks to a bold experiment by the European Union.” — Julia Angwin, The New York Times, 14 July 2023

Did You Know?

To behold something is to perceive or gaze upon it—therefore, to be beholden is to be seen or observed, right? Not so fast! It’s true that behold and beholden share the same Old English roots, and also that beholden originated as the past participle of behold, whose original meaning was “to hold or retain.” But the two words weaved and wended their way down different paths into present-day English. Behold had settled into its “perceive, see” use by the 12th century. Meanwhile, beholden was called into duty as the “indebted, obligated” adjective we know today by the 14th century, as evidenced by its appearance in the Middle-English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In the ensuing years, beholden has continued to describe people who are obligated to others (often for a favor or gift), as well as people or things that are in figurative debt due to aid or inspiration, as in “many contemporary books and films are beholden to old Arthurian legends.”