Hi Iris! It means that you call a call centre and they ask you to wait for a few minutes, but sometimes the waiting lasts for hours. Probably this is what makes people angry. This happened once in an episode of Friends, when Phoebe called a call centre, was asked to wait for a few minutes, but a few hours later she was still on the phone... and didn't want to hang up, because she thought that the waiting might end soon.

It's when you call a number, such as for a bank or a utility provider, and get put through to a call centre. The person who answers then says 'Hold on', switches on some irritating music or even more irritating pre-recorded message, and you are left waiting there for ages. That's what 'being kept on hold' is. We just love it when that happens.

"Being kept on hold by a call centre" refers to the time when you are on the phone to somebody from a company, and they pause the call to complete an action (usually when they do this they play music into the phone or something), and you have to wait until they have finished the action before you can speak to that person again. I hope this helps you!

I guessed wrong.Thank you so much to all of you.