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Hold the fort (British, American & Australian) also hold down the fort (American): to be left in charge of a situation or place while someone is away. Someone had to stay at home and hold the fort while my mother was out. (Cambridge Idiom Dictionary) According to the Phrase Finder: The correct phrase is "hold the fort" - there's no "down".
@Harshit there's a limited set of possibilities: 1) you misheard them, or misunderstood somehow, 2) they genuinely (and mistakenly) believe that "hold the forth" is an English expression or 3) It was a trick question, to which the answer is "'Hold the forth' is not an English expression.". Those are the only options.
To "speak one's piece" means to say something prepared, as in an opinion or statement... so telling people to "forever hold their piece" is saying "don't ever say what you came here to say." A. Hold your peace: Be silent, and be at peace. B. Hold your piece: Shut up. Share.
A fortress is a female fort. fortis. fort is an outpost, suggesting removal from the main military presence. fortification is built on an existing structure (building or village) or advantage in terrain (i.e. a hill or cave); it suggests being less remote, but also ad hoc. "They fortified the hill with a stone wall."
Reach me down that suit [etc.]. and vice versa. The possibility of such synonymous use of the verbal phrases explains the "occasional" (OED) noun, and "now rare" (OED) adjectival, uses of 'hand-me-down' in the sense of "ready-made" more usually associated with 'reach-me-down'. Equally, that possibility of synonymy explains the opposite, wherein ...
Most used and known nowadays is the OSI model with 7 layers - and these layers have an up / down direction. Now, if I want to get data from another computer, I technically send the other computer a request, which then converts said data "down" to the physical layer, until all is left is a physical signal.
From the New Oxford American Dictionary:. cross one's fingers (or keep one's fingers crossed): put one finger across another as a sign of hoping for good luck. • hope that someone or something will be successful.
@EdwinAshworth - hold down the fort is even worse if you want to see me and others quibble about the taxonomy of misused idioms... And I agree with the OP here. meat and potatoes is completely misused. It doesn't mean "substantive content," it means "lacking complication."
As reported by the NOAD, the pronunciation is |ˈfɔrˌteɪ| or |fɔrt|, whenever forte means a thing at which someone excels, or loud/loudly. In the first case, the origin of the word is from a French word fort (masculine), or forte (feminine), from Latin fortis; in the second case the origin is the Italian word forte, from the Latin fortis.
Fig. to take care of a place while someone who is usually there is gone, such as a store or one's home. (From western movies.) I'm going next door to visit Mrs. Jones. You stay here and hold the fort. You should open the store at eight o'clock and hold the fort until I get there at ten. Maybe this is just an American idiom, I don't know.