Tenure

How to spell tenure

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tenure

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tenure mean?

1. nounThe period or conditions under which a position, office, or role is held.
2. nounA guaranteed permanent appointment, especially for a university teacher, that protects them from arbitrary dismissal.
3. nounThe legal right or set of conditions under which land or property is held.

Tenure in a sentence

• During her tenure as chief executive, profits doubled.

• After seven years of research, she was finally granted tenure.

• Reform of land tenure was central to the new agricultural policy.

• The mayor faced several scandals throughout his tenure.

• The professor earned tenure on the strength of his published work.

• The family had held the farm under the same form of tenure for centuries.

Where does tenure come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Tenure comes from the Latin verb tenere, which meant simply 'to hold' or 'to keep'. From that root medieval Latin formed tenura for the act or right of holding something, and the word passed into English through Anglo-Norman and Old French during the 1300s. Its earliest English use was legal and feudal: it described the conditions under which a person held land from a lord, which is why we still speak of 'land tenure'. Over time the sense broadened from holding property to holding any office or position, and eventually to the secure, often permanent appointment granted to academics. The same tenere root quietly survives in a crowd of relatives such as 'tenant', 'tenacious', 'retain', and 'maintain', and the spelling trap is precisely that buried '-ure' ending, which sounds like a soft 'yer' yet is written like 'cure'.

How the word is built

• ten- (from Latin tenere: to hold)
• -ure (noun-forming suffix)