SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
retentive
adjective
Good at holding or remembering something.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Good at holding or remembering
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topRetentive describes the capacity to keep something. Absorbent takes in material but need not hold it well; recollective specifically concerns memory.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See retentive in use
Her retentive memory made learning the long poem easier.
Returning to a fictional language club, Omar worried that his conversation skills would atrophy if he continued avoiding opportunities to use them. His retentive memory still held many words from earlier lessons, but recalling vocabulary did not settle every choice during a fast exchange.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license