residency

American  

[rez-i-duhn-see] / ˈrɛz ɪ dən si /

noun

• residencies
  plural

1. residence.

2. the position or tenure of a medical resident.

3. (formerly) the official residence of a representative of the British governor general at an Indian court.

4. (formerly) an administrative division of the Dutch East Indies.

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residency British  

/ ˈrɛzɪdənsɪ /

noun

1. a variant of residence

2. a regular series of concerts by a band or singer at one venue

3. the period, following internship, during which a physician undergoes further clinical training, usually in one medical speciality

4. (in India, formerly) the official house of the governor general at the court of a native prince

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• residencies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of residency

First recorded in 1570–80; resid(ent) + -ency

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Explanation

Your residency is where you live, officially. A residency is also a temporary professional visit, like when a doctor does a residency at a hospital or a poet does a residency at a school. When someone emigrates to another country, they don't just visit temporarily — they gain residency in the new country, becoming a legal resident. And if you get a driver's license, you'll get it in the state where you have residency. Another way to use this noun is to mean "a stage of medical training." After attending medical school, new doctors have a residency at a hospital, where they specialize in a particular branch of medicine.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

residency residencies

An application for legal residency must happen first.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026

Though he was early in his residency, Mundo, a doctor who is bilingual, was familiar with this “bounce back.”

From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026

Because it can take months to establish residency in another state, billionaires would likely have had to initiate their relocation last autumn.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

Scottish visitors can get into the historic cathedral for free by registering online and providing proof of residency, while visitors who live elsewhere in the UK or abroad will need to pay for tickets.

From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026

Maybe it was the residency issue that did me in, though I suspect it was the misplaced hypocrisy.

From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich

For just as long, critics have ripped into his eccentric on-stage persona; still, Thompson has enjoyed one of the longest-running residencies in Las Vegas, playing shows at the Luxor Hotel & Casino.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026

“Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You” alchemized those months of research, plus a decade of drafts, residencies at the Headland Center for the Arts and Hedgebrook, as well as notebooks upon notebooks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2026

Homeland Security data from the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, the latest available, shows that of some 350,000 new permanent residencies issued, about 190,000—54 percent—were adjustments, which is in keeping with historical trends.

From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026

He also sketched out the argument against residencies: Namely that the cost of the journey to the show is largely “transferred to the consumer.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026

Large parts of the northern portion of the island of Borneo, which have been recently incorporated into one or two regular residencies, and assimilated to their Javanese possessions.

From Mark Seaworth by William Henry Giles Kingston

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