Retentiveness
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being retentive. uncountable
"The Neolithic of 8000 to 6000 B.C. is in the sign of Cancer, a feminine sign associated with domesticity, retentiveness, and sentiment."
- 2 the power of retaining liquid wordnet
- 3 the property of retaining possessions that have been acquired wordnet
- 4 the power of retaining and recalling past experience wordnet
Example
More examples"In youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those in a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous, and long-drawn-out. But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to a contentless unit, and the years grow hollow and collapse."
Etymology
From retentive + -ness.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.