Retaining

How to spell retaining

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce retaining

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does retaining mean?

1. verbContinuing to hold, keep, or keep possession of something.

Retaining in a sentence

• The company is retaining all of its senior staff during the merger.

• Retaining the original receipt makes the refund process much faster.

Where does retaining come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'retain', which English took from the Old French 'retenir' in the 1300s, itself descended from the Latin 'retinere', meaning 'to hold back' or 'to keep'. That Latin verb was built from the prefix 're-', meaning 'back', and 'tenere', the everyday verb 'to hold'. The 'tenere' root is remarkably productive and quietly sits inside a whole family of English words, including 'contain', 'detain', 'sustain', and 'tenant', all of which share the idea of holding. The spelling keeps the French-influenced '-tain' ending rather than a phonetic '-tane', which is the main thing to watch: the sound is a long 'ay', but the letters are 'ai'. Once you connect 'retaining' to its cousins 'maintaining' and 'containing', the '-taining' pattern becomes easy to lock in.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• tain (from Latin tenere: to hold)
• -ing (present participle suffix)