retainership

[ ri-tey-ner-ship ]

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of retainership¹

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

Example Sentences

On the other hand it was the milder and far different Virginia house service and the personal retainership of town life in which most white children grew up; it was this that impressed their imaginations and which they have so vividly portrayed.

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

All the few in whom yet lingered any shadow of retainership towards the fast-fading chieftainship of Glenwarlock, seemed to cherish the notion that the heir of the house had to be tended and cared for like a child—that was what they were in the world for.

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg