The first, which is related to the tain group (see <Tain> below), has a key-syllable that means holding: tenant, tenement, tenure, tenet, tenor, tenable, tenacious, contents, contentment, lieutenant, maintenance, sustenance, countenance, appurtenance, detention, retentive, pertinacity, pertinent, continent, abstinence, continuous, retinue.

Neither his tongue nor fingers are very retentive.

So retentive was her memory that she could play without notes a large portion of the works of Handel, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.

This industry in the squirrel is an instinct which directs it to lay up a store of provision for the winter; and as it is probable that its memory is not sufficiently retentive to enable it to recollect all the spots in which it deposits its acorns, it no doubt makes some slips in the course of the season, and loses some of them.

He had a most retentive memory.

Yet Carlyle manfully accomplished his task, and I am inclined to think that the second writing was better than the first; that he probably left out what was unessential, and made a more condensed narrative,a more complete picture, for his memory was singularly retentive.

His memory was singularly retentive.

The conversation of such a man as Ben Jonson alone, supposing him to have made no more display of his learning than chance or vanity would occasionally produce, must have supplied ample sources of information to a mind so curious, watchful, and retentive, that it did not suffer the slightest thing to escape its grasp.

He was possessed of a solid judgment, a ready and wonderfully retentive memory, an ardent love for truth, and a sweet disposition, mild, affectionate, and grateful.

Adj. retaining &c v.; retentive, tenacious.

His comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and retentive, his discourse is methodical, and his expression clear.

I have sometimes fancied that they have not a retentive Power, or the Faculty of suppressing their Thoughts, as Men have, but that they are necessitated to speak every Thing they think, and if so, it would perhaps furnish a very strong Argument to the Cartesians, for the supporting of their [Doctrine,] that the Soul always thinks.

His great powers of memory, characteristic of a mind singularly retentive of all impressions, were early developed.

It was undoubtedly to the observing eye and retentive memory thus practised in the cottage gardens, and in the lanes, and meadows, and marshes of Suffolk that his descriptions, when once he found where his true strength lay, owed a charm for which readers of poetry had long been hungering.

Parts of it were evidently written when the theme stirred and moved the writer: others, again, when he was merely bent on reproducing scenes that lived in his singularly retentive memory, with needless minuteness of detail, and in any kind of couplet that might pass muster in respect of scansion and rhyme.

He had a singularly retentive memory, and the habit of noting and brooding over incidentsspecially of "life's little ironies"wherever he encountered them.

He had a tolerably retentive memory, and the quantity that he read was surprising.

I had scarcely any convenience with respect to the procuring of books; but, as my memory was retentive, I frequently translated or modelled my narrative upon a reading of some years before.

Like holly, the box is very retentive of its sap, and warps when not properly dried, though when sufficiently seasoned it stands well.

Here now is erected the splendid dwelling house of one of the wealthiest citizens of the village, and the garden is converted into front yard, building spot and back yard, containing all the usual necessary appendages to a dwelling place, so that here all traces of former days have passed from the spot, and only live inscribed upon the retentive tablet of Memory.

He had one of the most retentive memories I have ever met with.

Possessing a retentive memory, he learned the whole of the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and part of John.

At seven, with a remarkably retentive memory,a thing which many of us spoil by trashy reading, or allowing our time and attention to be distracted by the trifles of every-day life,Harriet had learned twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters of the Bible.

Endowed by Nature with a retentive memory and a literary taste, active if singular, he may be discovered in his own pages moving up and down, in and out of society, supplying and correcting quotations, and gratifying the vanity of distinguished authors by remembering their own writings better than they did themselves.

He was possessed of a large and varied stock of information and a very retentive memory, which enabled him to quote correctly nearly everything of importance with which he had ever been familiar.