Beholden

//bɪˈhəʊldən// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Obligated to provide, display, or do something for another; indebted, obliged for a bounden duty. not-comparable, usually

    "From an early age, I had decided I wanted to be beholden to no one."

Adjective
  1. 1
    under a moral obligation to someone wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
obligatedacknowledgingappreciativebeholden toboundbounden

Example

More examples

"Aeschylus is not beholden to the rules of North and Hillard."

Etymology

From Middle English biholden (“beholden, obligated”), past participle of biholden (“to behold, look at”, modern behold), though that verb does not mean "to bind, obligate".

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.