patronships

Noun

patronship (countable and uncountable, plural patronships)

1. (uncommon) Patronage, the act or especially the formalized state of being a backer or supporter (of something).
   • Mrs. Isabelle Field Jddson has succeeded to the patronship of the late Cyrus W. Field and Mr. Charles S. Shepard to the patronship of the late Edward M. Shepard. Dr. Walter B. James has been elected patron of the Museum in recognition of his contributions ...1912, The American Museum Journal: 1912, page 35
2. Synonym of patroonship.
   • The Van Pere patronship at Berbice
   • Another seventeenth-century Dutch colony in Guiana that had significance for the slave trade was located on the Berbice River. [...] the colony [...] was allowed to continue as a family patronship.2008, Johannes Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 192

   Synonyms:

   patroonship