retain

Other forms of retain

past tense

retained·

present participle

retaining·

third person

retains·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about retain

What does retain mean?

retain means "hold back within". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in retain?

retain has 2 syllables: re-tain. The stress falls on "tain". In IPA it is /ɹɪˈteɪn/.

What is another word for retain?

Close synonyms include continue, keep, keep on, hold, keep back. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is retain a common word?

retain is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with retain?

10 words rhyme with retain. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.