To hold

To hold
 

There seem to be so many ways to express 'to hold' in Spanish - are some more commonly used than others? How regional are their uses? And are some options inappropriate in some cases?

For example:

tener en las manos
sostener
agarrar
sujetarse
mantener

Thanks in advance for your help. :)

For example I just wanted to say, she was holding a peach. I guessed 'tenía' un durazno en las manos' would be a pretty safe option but would 'agarraba un durazno' work just as well?

First you need to understand that hold means sostener.

hold = sostener

have = tener

to take = tomar/agarrar


Now, agarrar is more like to grasp, for me that I am from Chile. We do not use agarrar like in your example. We use "tomar" (take)

And yes to hold, in some instances would mean agarrar/tomar/sostener.

Say that holding a guy from his clothes, like the lapel of your jacket, like in a fight.

Lo agarró/tomó/sostuvo por la solapa de la chaqueta y lo tiró por tierra/lo echó a tierra.

Hope it helps.

peach is melocotón.

When our dog needed vet treatment the other day, the vet needed help for somebody else to hold her, and I was surprised when he said 'aguántala'.

Is that regional? Canarians do use odd words sometimes.

Para ustedes los españoles y no sabría decir quien más.

Sí, También se usa/usaba aguantar.

Melocotón creo que es una cualidad de durazno con el cual se hacen los huesillos (duraznos secos) y las conservas de duraznos en almibar.

@Learning: maybe you also want to take a look here.

Gracias pero creo que es algo regional. Quizas en España es melocotón pero por lo menos en algunos paises en America Latina creo que es durazno.

Thanks everyone :)

Durazno sounds quite strange to me, sorry .

I've known it is called both ways but have heard more people call it durazno.

As far as aguantar ... mostly my Caribbean friends use aguantar for "to hold" "wait", etc.

:)

Correcto. También se usa/usaba en Chile como "esperar".

"Melocotón" only appears in my old cook books, where "piñas" are "ananás", "chabacanos" are "albaricoques" and "toronjas" are "pomelos". :D

By the way, in Mexico, "aguantar" became a slang synonym of "esperar" only a few years ago, but only in imperative form... :)
- Aguanta, ya casi nos vamos.
- Aguántame diez minutos.
- Dile a Juan que aguante, ya casi llegamos.