tenure definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (22)

American Heritage Dictionary (3)

noun The act, fact, or condition of holding something in one's possession, as real estate or an office; occupation.
noun A period during which something is held.
noun The status of holding one's position on a permanent basis without periodic contract renewals: a teacher granted tenure on a faculty.

Century Dictionary (15)

Horn tenure in feudal law, tenure by cornage. It was the duty of the vassal to wind a horn upon the approach of an enemy to give notice thereof.
Survey tenure in India (Bombay Presidency), a tenure of land by which occupation is preceded by a survey. Each field is measured and assessed according to the quality of the soil and the crop. This assessment holds good without any modification for a term of thirty years; it is in fact a rent charge liable to change once in thirty years. In the Northwestern Provinces and the Punjab a somewhat similar tenure prevails. Encyc. Brit., XII. 771.
The nature of the right or title by which property, especially real property, is held; also, the property so held. Land-tenure is, in the main, either feudal or allodial. According to the latter tenure, the whole right and title to the land rests with the owner, subject only to the right of the state, and this is the principle of United States law; according to the former, the person possessing the land holds it from a superior, and this is the principle of English law. According to the theory in England, all land is held of the crown, either mediately or immediately. The ownership of land is therefore never unlimited as to extent, for he who is the owner of land in fee, which is the largest estate that a man can have in land, is not absolute owner; he owes services in respect of his fee (or flef), and the seigniory of the lord always subsists. All land in the hands of any layman is held of some lord, to whom the holder or tenant owes some service; but in the case of church lands, although they are held by tenure, no temporal services are due, but the lord of whom these lands are held must be considered the owner, although the beneficial ownership can never revert to the lord. All the species of ancient tenures may be reduced to four, three of which still subsist: (1) tenure by knight-service, which was the most honorable (now abolished); (2) tenure, in free socage, or by a certain and determinate service, which is either free and honorable or villein and base; (3) tenure by copy of court-roll, or copyhold tenure; (4) tenure in ancient demesne. There was also tenure in frankalmoin, or by free alms. (See frankalmoin.) The tenure in free and common socage has absorbed most of the others. (See estate, tenant, copyhold, socage, villeinage.) In Scots law the equivalent technical term is holding. And had not I ben, the comens wolde have brennyd his plase and all his tennuryes, wher thorough it coste me of my noune propr godes at that tyme more than vj. merks in mate and drynke. Paston Letters, I. 133.

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The terms make clear, "said Heribert, firmly and sadly," that my tenure is at the disposal of the legate. — Monk's Hood
The most notable events of his tenure were the revivals of 1734 and — Jonathan Edwards
When I became Foreign Minister of Pakistan, my first statement, and I drew a lot of flack in the local press for that, was that one of the priorities in my tenure should be the improvement of relations with India. — CNN Transcript Jan 26, 2003
And he also indicated that perhaps he thought his tenure might be a little misunderstood, referring to the war in Iraq as a "little understood war, the first real war of the 21st century." — CNN Transcript Nov 8, 2006
The first 10 years of his tenure were actually very, very positive. — CNN Transcript Sep 30, 2005

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lease · ownership · stint · endowment · appointment · sovereignty · inheritance · monarchy · allegiance · constitution · tenant · grant

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English, from Old French teneure, from tenir, to hold, from Latin tenēre, to hold; see ten- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (1)

from Middle English *tenure, tennure, from Old French tenure, teneure, French tenure (Middle Latin tenura), a tenure, or estate in land, from Latin tenere, hold: see tenant.

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