RETINUE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does retinue mean? 

• RETINUE (noun)
  The noun RETINUE has 1 sense:

1. the group following and attending to some important person

  Familiarity information: RETINUE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RETINUE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The group following and attending to some important person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

cortege; entourage; retinue; suite

Hypernyms ("retinue" is a kind of...):

assemblage; gathering (a group of persons together in one place)

Meronyms (parts of "retinue"):

bodyguard (a group of men who escort and protect some important person)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "retinue"):

court; royal court (the family and retinue of a sovereign or prince)

 Context examples 

And as they were sitting at the marriage-feast, the music suddenly stopped, the doors opened, and a stately king came in with a great retinue.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

All my retinue was that poor lad for an interpreter, whom I persuaded into my service, and, at my humble request, we had each of us a mule to ride on.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

And as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The one was a man with yellow flowing beard and very long hair of the same tint drooping over his shoulders; his dress of good Norwich cloth and his assured bearing marked him as a man of position, while the sombre hue of his clothes and the absence of all ornament contrasted with the flash and glitter which had marked the king's retinue.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It contained a warrant for conducting me and my retinue to Traldragdubh, or Trildrogdrib (for it is pronounced both ways as near as I can remember), by a party of ten horse.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

His excellency, having mounted on the small of my right leg, advanced forwards up to my face, with about a dozen of his retinue; and producing his credentials under the signet royal, which he applied close to my eyes, spoke about ten minutes without any signs of anger, but with a kind of determinate resolution, often pointing forwards, which, as I afterwards found, was towards the capital city, about half a mile distant; whither it was agreed by his majesty in council that I must be conveyed.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)