No, retention has a really limited use in English, and I would kind of avoid its use as a non-native speaker of English. It just means to keep something, coming from the commonly used verb "to retain". But retention as a noun is uncommonly used, or only has a limited use. A couple of examples come to mind. You could say "she has fluid rentention" , a medical term for edema. That's okay. Or you can say "his rentention" (i.e. his memory) is terrible". So, retention can mean memory too. You might get away with using the word in ways not referring to the human body, but they sound a little odd to me. I'm pretty sure you could say, for example, "his continued retention of the money is unlawful." That works. But frankly it's hard to come up with many examples that are appropriate for use of the word. Hence, I'd advise being very careful in using the word, or avoid it altogether and select more commonly used alternatives.

You could say "learning English requires great retention of vocabulary." It means that something is kept in your memory for a long time. For example, "retention of funny, random facts is a skill of mine."

We use the word retention all the time in education. I used to have to submit my retention figures to the Government every year. Schools, colleges and university all try to keep their retention figures high to keep the Government happy. This means they try hard to retain their students. - Keep them from leaving and going somewhere else. Retention is a familiar word in my industry but I do not sure about other industries. I guess other companies look at their own retention figures - the number of customers they keep and the number of customers that go to another supplier Hope this helps Jane :)

Hi Kinson: "Retention services" sounds weird to me. That sounds like it came out of a book that a non-native speaker wrote, but it might possibly be right. Again, it's just sounds strange and no native speakers talk like that. When I have to stop and wonder what something like this means, it normally means a non-native speaker wrote it. I even have to guess at what the phrase means. Does it mean "services through which qualified employees are found"? That's all I can make of it. I think the entire sentence needs to be re-written to be less convoluted.

Like I said, "retention" commonly means memory, but again I would use the word sparingly.