Other forms: upheld, upholding, upholds
To uphold is to defend and maintain a law, standard or decision. Uphold the law, uphold the appeal, uphold standards.
In law it is the technical word for a court agreeing with a decision under challenge: the appeal was upheld, the complaint was upheld. Note that upholding a complaint means agreeing with the complainant, which reads backwards to many people. The past tense is upheld. Note uphold and its opposites overturn and quash; and that upholstery is a different word entirely despite the resemblance.
1verbupholdTo defend and maintain a law, standard or decision.
“The appeal court upheld the original verdict.”
uphold is a maintaining.
The word is up plus hold, a plain English compound from Middle English. English built several of these — uphold, withhold, behold — and only uphold has kept a technical legal use.
Middle English
upholden
English, today
uphold
From Middle English upholden, equivalent to up + hold. Compare Dutch ophouden (“to stop, cease, hold up”), German aufhalten (“to stop, halt, detain”). Compare also Middle Low German upholt, Old Norse upphald (“uphold, support”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA