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
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
Leadership Vocabulary
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Frightful's Mountain
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Fablehaven
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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.
For three decades, Minerva Analytics has championed a simple principle: Stewardship should always reflect the investor’s voice—not ours, not a trade association’s and certainly not a politician’s.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025
Jonathan Harrison, a financial advisor at Sound Stewardship in Overland Park, Kan., has been overweighting large-cap value, small-caps, and international stocks in his client portfolios for years.
From Barron's • Oct. 25, 2025
Longi and Aiko are both members of the Solar Stewardship Initiative, which is a scheme designed to develop confidence in the supply chain and the responsible sourcing of solar panels.
From BBC • Jul. 19, 2025
Last June, a flock of approximately 103,000 turkeys in Cherokee County, Iowa, was reportedly infected with bird flu, per the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
From Salon • Jan. 24, 2025
They had come to see the futility of any attempt upon the Stewardship.
From Chronicles of Strathearn by Macdougall, W. B.
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.
