Q: I keep hearing “beholden” used in terms of having to go by a schedule, and even caught myself doing it once. Is this usage becoming more common and considered correct?
A: Traditionally, “beholden” has meant obligated or indebted to someone or something, especially for a gift or favor.
Although “beholden” has also been used for figurative debts or obligations, standard dictionaries don’t recognize its use in the sense of restricted to or bound by something, such as a schedule.
You’re right, however, that the sense of bound by is out there and has appeared in some major publications. This use of “beholden” may very well make its way into standard dictionaries, but it’s not there yet. Here’s the story.
When the verb “behold” appeared in Old English writing as bihaldan, it meant “to hold by, keep, observe, regard, look,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Here’s an expanded OED example from the Blickling Homilies, believed written in the late 10th century, of “behold” used in the sense of to look upon someone or something, the usual modern sense:
englas hie georne beheoldan of þæm dæge þe hie wiston þæt heo seo eadige maria geeacnod wæs of þæm halgan gasten.
(The angels earnestly beheld her from the day they knew that the blessed Mary had been conceived by the Holy Spirit.)
Note that in Old English, the past tense of “behold” was beheoldan (“beholden”), a verb form that was later replaced by “beheld.”
In Middle English, “beholden” became a past participle, and later a predicate adjective.
In this adjectival use, which first appeared in the late 14th century, “beholden” was used with a form of the verb “be” (as in “I am beholden,” “he was beholden,” etc.) and came to mean obligated or indebted.
The two earliest OED citations are from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a chivalric romance written around 1390:
“I am derely to yow biholde” (“I am dearly beholden to you”) … “I am hyȝly bihalden, & euer-more wylle Be seruaunt to your-seluen” (“I am highly beholden and evermore will be servant to yourself”).
As for the modern use of “beholden,” Merriam-Webster online says it describes “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.’ ”
The OED has this 19th-century figurative example, which we’ve expanded, from Modern English (1873), by the American philologist Fitzedward Hall:
“As to ourselves, a student must be exceedingly inobservant, not to have perceived how deeply we are beholden to the happy daring of translators for the amplitude and variety of our diction, and for the flexibility of our constructions.”
Finally, here are a few examples we’ve found for the as yet unrecognized sense of “beholden” that you’ve asked about—the use of the adjective to mean restricted to or bound by a schedule:
“He maintains the same workout routine he had in his prime, and he still rises at 4 a.m., restless and beholden to a schedule he no longer has to keep” (a comment about the boxer Joe Frazier from a review of Thrilla in Manila, a documentary about his third match with Muhammad Ali, Sports Illustrated, April 22, 2009).
“Motown mitigated some of the risk by making Broadway the final stop. It wasn’t beholden to a schedule that would keep it there if things went south, and producer Kevin McCollum made the right (if tough) call to cut losses and wrap up the show early” (Forbes, July 31, 2016).
“But anytime they left the city—which they frequently did—traveling was a challenge, as they usually took the train and were beholden to a schedule” (from an article about a carless Manhattan couple, New York Times, Feb. 1, 2018).
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