retention

Other forms of retention

plural

retentions·

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 retention

What does retention mean?

retention means "the act of retaining something". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in retention?

retention has 3 syllables: re-ten-tion. The stress falls on "ten". In IPA it is /ɹiˈtɛnʃən/.

What is another word for retention?

Close synonyms include keeping, holding, memory, retentiveness, retentivity. 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 retention a common word?

retention is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. 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 retention?

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