tenure
Pluraltenures
Verbtenures, tenuring, tenured
Pluraltenures
Formstenures, tenuring, tenured
- 1The length of time that someone keeps or holds something, like a job or land.
Like your turn in a game: the time when something is yours before you give it up.
During her tenure as mayor, the city built three new parks.
His tenure at the company lasted almost twenty years.
Similarterm, incumbency, stint
- 2A permanent teaching job at a college that is very hard to lose.
Like a seat that is saved for you forever: no one can easily take it away.
After seven years of hard work, she finally got tenure at the university.
Professors with tenure cannot lose their jobs easily.
- 3The state of holding a job, an office, or a piece of property.
Her tenure as team captain gives her the right to pick the players.
No one ever questioned the family's tenure of the old farm.
Similarincumbency, occupancy, possession
Note
- 4In the Middle Ages, the right to use land that belonged to a king or a lord.
Like renting a house, but paying with work or fighting instead of money.
The knight's tenure of his lands depended on fighting for the king.
The farmers held their fields by tenure from the local lord.
- 5To give a teacher at a college a permanent job that is hard to lose.
The college decided to tenure her after six years of teaching.
They tenured him last spring, so now his job is safe.
Note
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of tenure apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
It came from an Old French word tenure, based on the Latin verb teneō, meaning to hold.