Hold
An informal block placed on a bill by leadership or a chair, keeping it off the calendar without a public vote against it. The bill doesn't die on the record. It just never moves.
Why it matters
A hold is how bills die without fingerprints. No vote, no debate, no record. A chair or leader simply never schedules the bill, and the session clock does the killing. Because nothing official happened, there's nothing to appeal and nobody to blame, which is precisely the point. Breaking a hold means pressure: public attention, leadership intervention, or the nuclear option of a discharge petition.
In the game
Let your Political Capital or Public Awareness sag in The Bill to Law Game and you'll feel a hold: weeks tick by, nothing moves, and the game makes you spend something to shake the bill loose.