retainer

retainer
    n 1: a fee charged in advance to retain the services of someone
         [syn: {retainer}, {consideration}]
    2: a person working in the service of another (especially in the
       household) [syn: {servant}, {retainer}]
    3: a dental appliance that holds teeth (or a prosthesis) in
       position after orthodontic treatment
    

Retainer \Re*tain"er\, n.
   1. One who, or that which, retains.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. One who is retained or kept in service; an attendant; an
      adherent; a hanger-on.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Hence, a servant, not a domestic, but occasionally
      attending and wearing his master's livery. --Cowell.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. (Law)
      (a) The act of a client by which he engages a lawyer or
          counselor to manage his cause.
      (b) The act of withholding what one has in his hands by
          virtue of some right.
      (c) A fee paid to engage a lawyer or counselor to maintain
          a cause, or to prevent his being employed by the
          opposing party in the case; -- called also {retaining
          fee}. --Bouvier. --Blackstone.
          [1913 Webster]

   5. The act of keeping dependents, or the state of being in
      dependence. --Bacon.
      [1913 Webster]
    

RETAINER, practice. The act of a client, by which he engages an attorney or 
counsellor to manage a cause, either by prosecuting it, when he is 
plaintiff, or defending it, when he is defendant. 
     2. "The effect of a retainer to prosecute or defend a suit," says 
Professor Greenleaf; Ev. vol. ii. Sec. 141; "is to confer on the attorney 
all the powers exercised by the forms and usages of the courts, in which the 
suit is pending. He may receive payment; may bring a second suit after being 
non-suited in the first for want of formal proof; may sue a writ of error on 
the judgment; may discontinue the suit; may restore an action after a non 
pros; may claim an appeal and bind his client in his name for the 
prosecution of it; way submit the suit to arbitration; may sue out an alias 
execution; may receive livery of seisin of land taken by an extent may waive 
objections to evidence, and enter into stipulation for the admission of 
facts or conduct of the trial and for release of bail; may waive the right 
of appeal, review, notice, and the like, and confess judgment. But he has no 
authority to execute a discharge of a debtor but upon the actual payment of 
the full amount of the debt, and that in money only; nor to release 
sureties; nor to enter a retraxit; nor to act for the legal representatives 
of his deceased client; nor to release a witness." 
    

31 Moby Thesaurus words for "retainer":
      account, adherent, allowance, appendage, assessment, bill,
      blackmail, blood money, dangler, dependent, emolument, fee,
      follower, footing, hanger-on, heeler, henchman, hush money,
      initiation fee, man, mileage, reckoning, retaining fee, satellite,
      scot, servant, shadow, stipend, tagtail, tribute, ward heeler