Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

retainership

American  
[ri-tey-ner-ship] / rɪˈteɪ nərˌʃɪp /

noun

  1. the condition of being a retainer or of having retainers.

Etymology

Origin of retainership

First recorded in 1560–70; retainer 1 + -ship

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In fact, they stood on the borderland of that feudal retainership which was being rapidly extinguished.

From Unknown to History: a story of the captivity of Mary of Scotland by Yonge, Charlotte Mary

They had settled upon the Prince of India in a kind of retainership.

From The Prince of India — Volume 02 by Wallace, Lewis

House service was the older feudal idea of personal retainership, developed in Virginia and Carolina in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From The Negro by Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.