Other forms: tenures
Tenure is the holding of a job, an office or a piece of land — the stretch of time you hold it and the terms on which you hold it. During her tenure as head teacher, three new buildings went up and the roll doubled.
In universities the word has a narrower, sharper meaning: tenure is the permanent post a scholar is granted after years of probation, after which they cannot be dismissed for what they teach or publish. Hence tenure-track, a job that leads towards it, and tenured professor. Property law uses tenure for the conditions under which land or a home is held, and security of tenure is a tenant's protection from being turned out. The word is formal; nobody talks about their tenure at a summer job. Note the near neighbours it is not: tenor and tenement.
1nountenureThe period during which someone holds an office or a job.
“Crime fell sharply during his tenure as police chief.”
formal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
synonyms: term, incumbency
2nounpermanentA permanent academic post that protects a scholar from being dismissed.
“She was granted tenure at thirty-four and kept the same office for the next thirty years.”
3nounconditionsThe conditions on which land or property is held.
“Reforms to land tenure gave tenant farmers the right to sell.”
tenure is a period or right of holding something.
Tenure came into Middle English from Old French tenure, and before that Vulgar Latin tenitura, built on Latin tentus, from the verb teneō. The trail runs back to a Proto-Indo-European root written *ten-. What survived the whole journey is a hold that lasts, which is what a professor is granted and what a tenant is protected by.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
tentus
Vulgar Latin
*tenitura
Old French
tenure
Middle English
tenure
English, today
tenure
From Middle English tenure, from Anglo-Norman -, from Old French tenure, from Vulgar Latin tenitura, from tenitus, from Latin tentus (from teneō) + -ura.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA