(UK, colloquial, plurale tantum) Women's stockings designed to be worn without suspenders.
2007, Lisa Hilton, "I cheated...", The Observer, 8 Jul 07:Yet the conventions of cheating possess an odd kind of romance, of the love affair perpetually stalled in its first stages, when no one on the platform at Paddington knows you're only wearing hold-ups under your mac and you can briefly return to the drama of being the woman you thought had died of boredom somewhere on the thousand-and-eleventh trip to Waitrose.