retainer

C2+ Topic:Money & Finance

US /rɪˈteɪnɚ/ UK /rɪˈteɪnə/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a fee paid to secure services; a servant or device that holds something in place

She paid the lawyer a monthly retainer to remain on call.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a fee paid to secure... fee advance servant attendant brace dependent

Word family

Related forms retain retention retentive detain contain

Etymology

From retain + -er, from Old French retenir, from Latin retinere ('to hold back'), from re- ('back') + tenere ('to hold').

retinere Latin tenere Latin *ten- Proto-Indo-European

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Money & Finance Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# retainer

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /rɪˈteɪnɚ/
**IPA (UK):** /rɪˈteɪnə/

## Meanings
1. a fee paid to secure services; a servant or device that holds something in place

## Examples
- She paid the lawyer a monthly retainer to remain on call.

## Synonyms
- fee
- advance
- servant
- attendant
- brace
- dependent

## Related Forms
- retain
- retention
- retentive
- detain
- contain

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: retinere
- Root: tenere
- Root: *ten-

## Etymology
From retain + -er, from Old French retenir, from Latin retinere ('to hold back'), from re- ('back') + tenere ('to hold').

## AI Etymology
Retainer comes from retain + -er, from Old French retenir, from Latin retinere ('to hold back'), from re- ('back') + tenere ('to hold'). The historical chain includes Latin retinere, Latin tenere, and Proto-Indo-European *ten-. Older glosses in the chain include "to hold back", "back", and "to hold", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, retainer is best read as compound, suffixal formation, and borrowing, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "a fee paid to secure services; a servant or device that holds something in place". related forms include retain, retention, retentive, and detain. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Money & Finance
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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