Meaning of hold the ring | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To maintain order among spectators encircling participants in a prizefight or a performance and keep them from coming too near the participants.
   obsolete
2. To be a spectator at a fight; (figuratively) to watch other people argue.
3. To oversee a situation while attempting to remain uninvolved in it.
   British, idiomatic
4. Of a prizefighter: to hold one's own during a fight; to continue winning a series of fights.

Examples

“Police held the ring⟳ during the protests.”

“In England a century earlier it had been a struggle⟳ between two warring houses, in France it was now a struggle⟳ between three: Guise, Montmorency and Bourbon, with the feeble government of Catherine de Medici vainly trying to hold⟳ the ring⟳.”

“While this debate⟳ was going on in Nature another was being conduct in Archaeometry. This was between Betancourt – and his old colleague Michael – and Warren, with the English archaeometrist M. J. Aitken holding the ring⟳.”

“It is the great powers that create⟳ international upheavals. In 1912–13 the Balkan powers fought two bitter wars among themselves, while the great powers held the ring⟳.”

“Lieutenant-General Fry says that coalition forces will continue⟳ military operations "to separate⟳ the two sides of the sectarian conflict" but that such operations were meant to hold⟳ the ring⟳ until the politicians come⟳ up with a solution.”

CEFR level