The stages of psychosexual development—oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital—turn out to be one big Freudian slip, betraying severe anal retention on the part of the taxonomist.
Source: tatoeba (780049)
Retention
//ɹɪˈtɛnʃən//
Synonyms for "retention" (77 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (16)
Strong matches (23)
Related words (38)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
More general
7 entriesSynonyms
2 entriesderived
17 entriesShowing 16 of 17 words.
has context
2 entriesis a
1 entriesrelated to
29 entriesShowing 16 of 29 words.
Translations
65 translations across 18 languages.
Arabic
3 entries- أُسْر noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
- حِفْظ noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- ذَاكِرَة noun (a memory)
Bulgarian
4 entries- задържане noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- задържане noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
- запомняне noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- памет noun (a memory)
Chinese Mandarin
1 entries- 留用 noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
Danish
4 entries- erindring noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- erindring noun (a memory)
- fastholdelse noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- minde noun (a memory)
Dutch
4 entries- geheugen noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- herinnering noun (a memory)
- herinneringsvermogen noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- memorie noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
Estonian
1 entries- säilitamine noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
Finnish
4 entries- muistaminen noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- muisto noun (a memory)
- omavastuu noun (portion of any potiential damage that must be paid for by the holder of an insurance policy)
- pidätysoikeus noun (right to withhold a debt)
French
3 entries- droit de rétention noun (right to retain property until a debt is paid)
- rétention noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- rétention noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
German
4 entries- Behalten noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- Erinnerung noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- Erinnerung noun (a memory)
- Verhalt noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
Indonesian
1 entries- retensi noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
Irish
1 entries- coinneáil noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
Italian
2 entries- conservazione noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- ritenzione noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
Malay
1 entries- penahanan noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
Polish
1 entries- pamięć noun (a memory)
Romanian
4 entries- amintire noun (a memory)
- memorare noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- memorie noun (a memory)
- retenție noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
Russian
4 entries- задержа́ние noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
- па́мять noun (a memory)
- сохране́ние noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- сохране́ние в па́мяти noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
Spanish
4 entries- recuerdo noun (a memory)
- retención noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- retención noun (the involuntary withholding of urine and faeces)
- retentiva noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
Ukrainian
3 entries- зберігання noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
- зберігання в пам’яті noun (the act or power of remembering things; memory)
- утримання noun (the act of retaining or something retained)
Sample sentences
12 total sentences available.
Uncertainty regarding the company's financial situation will interfere with employee retention.
Source: tatoeba (8657789)
Chunking helps improve memory retention.
Source: tatoeba (11929341)
Continuous practice allows for the retention of grammar rules, sentence structures, and idiomatic expressions.
Source: tatoeba (12120039)
Showing 4 of 12 available sentences.
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.