Hold back and study wife cutting potato (5,5)
I believe the answer is:
tread water
'hold back' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'study wife cutting potato' is the wordplay.
'study' becomes 'read' ('read' can be a synonym of 'study').
'wife' becomes 'w'.
'cutting' indicates putting letters inside (some letters cut their way into a word).
'potato' becomes 'tater' ('tater' can be a synonym of 'potato'**).
'read'+'w'='readw'
'readw' placed into 'tater' is 'TREAD WATER'.
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tread water that I've seen before include "Mainly make no progress" , "unwilling to go with the flow?" , "fail to make progress!" , "having no solid base" , "Make little or no progress" .)