retention
noun
Simple meaning
Retaining or something retained.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
reetehnshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹiˈtɛnʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The act of retaining or something retained.
The act or power of remembering things.
Memory; what is retained in the mind.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act or power of remembering things.
Used this way, retention is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- retentivity , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use retention
- “Good study habits improve memory retention for new information.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A storage site similar to a detention basin but the water in storage is permanently obstructed from flowing downstream.
Holding urine in the urinary bladder.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Related Learning
Guides that use this word in context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.