patronship

plural patronships

1. countableuncommonuncountablePatronage, 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

   1 more example

   The alliance has never been one between equal partners but has always been based on the idea of patronship of one social class over another. Patronship is assumed by the group which is considered to be both ideologically and culturally at a higher level of development and which, on the strength of this, gives friendly assistance to the group at a lower level.

   1981, Christel Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society - the Soviet Case, CUP Archive, →ISBN, page 128

2. countableuncountableSynonym 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