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Retain vs Think - What's the difference?

retain | think |

In transitive terms the difference between retain and think

is that retain is to hold secure while think is to consider, judge, regard, or look upon (something) as.

As a noun think is

an act of thinking; consideration (of something).

retain

English

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.

    Synonyms

    * keep

    Anagrams

    * *

    think

    English

    Alternative forms

    * thinck (obsolete)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) thinken, thynken, thenken, thenchen, from (etyl) .

    Verb

  • (label) To ponder, to go over in one's head.
  • :
  • *
  • *:So this was my future home, I thought ! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills,a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}
  • (label) To communicate to oneself in one's mind, to try to find a solution to a problem.
  • :
  • To conceive of something or someone (usually followed by of'''; infrequently, by '''on ).
  • :
  • (label) To be of the opinion (that).
  • :
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=3 , passage=Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.}}
  • (label) To guess; to reckon.
  • :
  • (label) To consider, judge, regard, or look upon (something) as.
  • :
  • *, chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”}}
  • To plan; to be considering; to be of a mind (to do something).
  • *Sir (Walter Scott), (Ivanhoe)
  • *:The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. "I thought to have lodged him in the solere chamber," said he
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.}}
  • To presume; to venture.
  • *(Bible), (w) iii. 9
  • *:Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father.
  • Synonyms
    * (sense, communicate to oneself in one's mind) cogitate, ponder, reflect, ruminate; see also * opine; see also * guess (US), imagine, reckon, suppose * consider, deem, find, judge, regard; see also
    Derived terms
    * rethink * think about * thinker * thinko * think of * think on one's feet * think out * think over * think piece * think the world of * think twice * think up * think with one's little head * unthinkable

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • An act of thinking; consideration (of something).
  • :
  • Derived terms
    * badthink * doublethink * goodthink * groupthink * have another think coming * rethink (noun, as in "have a rethink")

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Verb

    think' (''obsolete except in archaic'' ' methinks )
  • (label) To seem, to appear.
  • *:
  • And whanne syr launcelot sawe he myghte not ryde vp in to the montayne / he there alyghte vnder an Appel tree // And then he leid hym doune to slepe / And thenne hym thoughte there came an old man afore hym / the whiche sayd A launcelot of euylle feythe and poure byleue / wherfor is thy wille tourned soo lyghtely toward thy dedely synne