Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RE-TEN'TION, n. [Fr. from L. retentio, retineo; re and teneo, to hold.]

1. The act of retaining or keeping.
2. The power of retaining; the faculty of the mind by which it retains ideas. Locke.
3. In medicine, the power of retaining; or that state of contraction in the elastic or muscular parts of the body, by which they hold their proper contents and prevent involuntary evacuations; undue retention of some natural discharge. – Encyc. Coxe.
4. The act of withholding; restraint. – Shak.
5. Custody; confinement. [Not in use.] – Shak.