Verb

(en verb)

To keep in possession or use.

* Milton

Be obedient, and retain / Unalterably firm his love entire.

* 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually thinking of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this image fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. Yet every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into decay in his arms.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}

To keep in one's pay or service.

* Addison

A Benedictine convent has now retained the most learned father of their order to write in its defence.

To employ by paying a retainer.

To hold secure.

(obsolete) To restrain; to prevent.

(obsolete) To belong; to pertain.

* Boyle

A somewhat languid relish, retaining to bitterness.

Verb

(ensur)

To make a pledge to (someone); to promise, guarantee (someone of something); to assure.

*:

*:Thenne he cryed hym mercy and sayd Faire knyght for goddes loue slee me not / and I shall ensure the neuer werre ageynst thy lady / but be alwey toward her / Thenne Bors lete hym be

To make sure or certain of something (usually some future event or condition).

:

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington

, title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}