is an attribute that specifies that the first argument to a function is to be maintained in an unevaluated form.
HoldFirst
is an attribute that specifies that the first argument to a function is to be maintained in an unevaluated form.
Examples
open all close allBasic Examples (1)
Applications (1)
Properties & Relations (6)
Functions that operate on symbols often need the HoldFirst attribute:
Assignments do not evaluate their left-hand sides:
Use Evaluate to force evaluation of an argument of a HoldFirst function:
Suppress the evaluation of the first argument of a pure function:
Sequence splitting still happens for HoldFirst functions:
NHoldFirst protects arguments from N but evaluates them normally otherwise:
See Also
Tech Notes
Related Guides
Related Workflows
- Substitute Values of Variables in Functions That Hold Their Arguments
History
Introduced in 1988 (1.0)
Text
Wolfram Research (1988), HoldFirst, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/HoldFirst.html.
CMS
Wolfram Language. 1988. "HoldFirst." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/HoldFirst.html.
APA
Wolfram Language. (1988). HoldFirst. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/HoldFirst.html
BibTeX
@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_holdfirst, author="Wolfram Research", title="{HoldFirst}", year="1988", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/HoldFirst.html}", note=[Accessed: 28-August-2025]}
BibLaTeX
@online{reference.wolfram_2025_holdfirst, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={HoldFirst}, year={1988}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/HoldFirst.html}, note=[Accessed: 28-August-2025]}