Retention is keeping customers rather than losing them. Customer retention, retention rate, improve retention.
Keeping an existing customer costs a fraction of winning a new one, which is why the measure gets so much attention. In employment, staff retention is the same idea. In medicine, retention means holding fluid the body should pass. Note retain; and that the Latin means to hold back.
1nounmarketingKeeping customers or staff rather than losing them.
“The company improved staff retention by offering better pay and flexible hours.”
2nounholdingHolding fluid the body should pass.
“Swollen ankles can be a sign of fluid retention.”
retention is a keeping.
Latin retentio comes from retinere, to hold back — re plus tenere, to hold. Tenant, contain and detain come from the same holding.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
retentiō
Middle English
retencioun
English, today
retention
Built from
From Middle English retencioun, borrowed from Latin retentiō, from retentus, the perfect passive participle of retineō (“retain”) (from re- (“back, again”) + teneō (“hold, keep”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA