## Etymology
From Middle English withholden, a compound of with- ('back, away') + hold, from Old English wiþ ('against, back') and healdan ('to hold, keep').

## AI Etymology
withhold comes from Middle English withholden, a compound of with- ('back, away') + hold, from Old English wiþ ('against, back') and healdan ('to hold, keep'). Morphologically, the word is transparent as a compound: its parts remain visible in the modern spelling, while the older history of those parts supplies the deeper ancestry. In modern use, the verb sense is "to refuse to give or hold back something", which keeps the etymology connected to the word's present dictionary value rather than treating it as a merely historical label. The wider word family includes related English forms such as with, hold, behold and derivatives such as withholder, withholding, showing how the same base continues to support neighboring English vocabulary. The principal historical forms in the chain include Old English wiþ, Old English healdan, which anchor the explanation in named linguistic material.

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