stewardship
Americannoun
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the position and duties of a steward, a person who acts as the surrogate of another or others, especially by managing property, financial affairs, an estate, etc.
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the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving.
New regulatory changes will result in better stewardship of lands that are crucial for open space and wildlife habitat.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of stewardship
Explanation
Stewardship means the management or care of something, particularly the kind that works. If your company is making money, there’s probably been careful stewardship — or, a lot of luck. The sphere or responsibility of a steward (as in a manager or administrator), stewardship is often used to mean "the care, handling and management of resources." Your school requires stewardship to make sure its supplies aren’t stretched. Your clean water may be thanks to the stewardship of an environmental office. Though there is a steward on a ship to handle food and supplies, the ship in stewardship is not a seagoing vessel; it's just a suffix.
Vocabulary lists containing stewardship
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Frightful's Mountain
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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.
When I asked him how he approaches the stewardship of two houses synonymous with their founders’ creative visions, he offered a personally chilling analogy.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 9, 2026
The inaugural marathon under Burke’s stewardship took place in 1986, and 11,000 racers toed the starting line, nearly half the size of the long-running and world-famous New York City Marathon that same year.
From Los Angeles Times • May 30, 2026
"First Light" is also the first game with the Bond franchise under the stewardship of Amazon, which bought studio MGM in 2022.
From Barron's • May 26, 2026
Not much up, not much down - just a very stable presence under the excellent stewardship of Marco Silva.
From BBC • May 25, 2026
What account would we give of our stewardship of the planet Earth?
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
