hold together

keep something as one piece or stop it from breaking apart

B2

What does "hold sth together" mean?

To hold something together means to actively keep it from falling apart or breaking into pieces — whether that's a physical object, a group of people, an organization, or a plan. The key idea is that some person, force, or thing is doing the work of maintaining unity. Without that effort, the thing would fragment or collapse. You'll often hear it used about leaders who keep a team functioning during difficult times, or about shared values that keep a community or coalition intact. It works equally well for literal situations (tape holding a broken vase together) and figurative ones (a manager holding a struggling company together).

Examples

How to use it

subject + hold + object + together

The most common transitive pattern, where a person, force, or thing actively maintains something as a unit.

Her steady leadership held the team together through months of uncertainty.

hold + pronoun + together

When the object is a pronoun, it must go between 'hold' and 'together' — never after.

The alliance was fragile, but shared economic interests held it together.

be held together by + noun/noun phrase

The passive form is very natural and is used to highlight the force or factor that maintains unity.

The community was held together by a deep sense of shared history.

struggle / manage to hold + object + together

Often combined with verbs like 'struggle', 'manage', or adverbs like 'barely' to show the difficulty of maintaining unity.

The new CEO was barely managing to hold the company together after the scandal.

what holds + object + together

A very common structure in both speech and writing, used to ask or explain what maintains something's unity.

No one could quite explain what held the partnership together for so many years.

Common Collocations

hold the team togetherhold the family togetherhold the country togetherhold things togetherheld together bybarely hold together

Common Mistakes

Pronoun placed after 'together'

When the object is a pronoun like 'it' or 'them', it must go between 'hold' and 'together'. Placing the pronoun after 'together' is unnatural in English.

✗ She somehow managed to hold together it during the restructure.
✓ She somehow managed to hold it together during the restructure.
Confusing transitive and intransitive senses

The transitive sense (someone holds something together) and the intransitive sense (something holds together = is internally coherent) have different structures and meanings. In the transitive sense, there is always an object being maintained by an external agent; in the intransitive sense, there is no object and the focus is on whether something is coherent or logical.

✗ She held together the argument very well. (when you mean: the argument was logically sound)
✓ The argument held together very well. (intransitive) / She held the team together very well. (transitive)
Confusing 'hold together' with 'stick together'

'Stick together' is usually intransitive and describes people mutually supporting each other, while 'hold together' (transitive) implies one person or force is actively preventing fragmentation. They are not always interchangeable.

✗ The captain held together with the players no matter what.
✓ The captain held the players together no matter what.

Usage

This phrasal verb is equally common in spoken and written English and works in both literal contexts (physical objects) and figurative ones (organizations, relationships, plans). The collocation 'holding it together' is often used informally to mean coping under pressure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can 'hold together' be used for physical objects, not just groups of people?

Yes, absolutely. 'Hold together' works just as naturally for physical things as it does for organizations or relationships. You might say a few bolts are holding an old machine together, or that a coat is held together by a single button. Both literal and figurative uses are equally common.

Is 'barely holding together' a common expression?

Yes, it's very frequently used. Adding 'barely', 'only just', or 'somehow' before or after the verb adds the sense that maintaining unity is difficult or precarious. For example: 'The coalition was barely held together by a last-minute compromise.' This kind of phrasing is common in journalism and everyday speech.

What does 'holding it together' mean when talking about a person?

When used informally about a person, 'holding it together' often means coping under stress or managing to function despite difficult circumstances — for example, 'She's barely holding it together since she lost her job.' This is a specific idiomatic extension of the phrasal verb and is slightly different from the main meaning of maintaining a group or object as a unit.

Can I use 'hold together' in formal writing?

Yes — 'hold together' is neutral in tone and appears naturally in formal contexts like journalism, political commentary, and academic writing, as well as in everyday speech. There's no need to replace it with a more formal alternative in professional or written contexts.

What kinds of things can be the object of 'hold together'?

The object is typically something that could fall apart without effort — a team, family, coalition, company, country, marriage, deal, or physical object. The subject (the thing doing the holding) can be a person, a shared value, an agreement, or even a material like glue or tape. It's a very flexible phrasal verb with a wide range of collocations.

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