Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or state of being retentive.
  • noun Capacity or power of retaining.
  • noun Physics The capacity for a body to remain magnetized after the magnetizing field has ceased to exert an effect.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Retentiveness; specifically, in magnetism, coercive force (which see, under coercive).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The power of retaining; retentive force.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The ability to retain, potential for retention
  • noun sciences The capacity to retain magnetism after the magnetizing action

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the power of retaining liquid
  • noun the power of retaining and recalling past experience
  • noun the property of retaining possessions that have been acquired

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From retentive (from Latin) + -ity

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Examples

  • One more time: I am for reproducibility, scrutiny, anal-retentivity, and so on in the ultimate goal of improving our scientific understanding.

    Replication Policy Re-Posted « Climate Audit 2007

  • In addition, lime has additional qualities, such as good workability, ability to accept movement without cracking, water retentivity and resistance to water penetration, thus making it more suitable than Portland cement for masonry work.

    Chapter 8 1985

  • While I respect anyone with the patience and anal retentivity needed to hypermile for at least three days - in the same sense that I respect anyone who can conjugate Latin verbs - I predict this won't go well.

    The Truth About Cars 2008

  • Just when you say “I am for reproducibility, scrutiny, anal-retentivity, and so on in the ultimate goal of improving our scientific understanding.” some of us are perplexed due to some of the other things you say like when you said “it doesn’t matter who wrote it” in regards to what they wrote at DMOZ.

    Replication Policy Re-Posted « Climate Audit 2007

  • This appealed to the part of my that likes symmetry and balance, though others might refer to this tendency in a disparaging manner, such as "anal retentivity" or excessive geekiness. "

    historymike 2009

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