membership

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The state of being a member of a group or organization.

   “The terms of membership agreement were vague.”

   “He has memberships in clubs in three cities.”

   “But when Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn were named deep in the heart of the '80s the thing was cuteness, feminine delicacy raised to an aesthetic paradigm. --- And everyone named according to a particular version of the pedigree fantasy. Ashley : transplanted Southern privilege, a destiny lying in sorority mixers and a marriage of health club memberships, state-of-the-art appliances and night courses in nouvelle cuisine.”

   “Hence there resulted a division of the membership of the brotherhood into two classes, the practical and theoretic, or, as they are more commonly called, the operative and speculative, or “domatic” and “geomatic."”

2. (countable, uncountable)The body of members of an organization.

   “The memberships of the state chapters elect delegates to the national convention.”

3. (countable, uncountable)The fact of being a member of a set.

verb

1. (transitive)To classify (someone) as belonging to a certain group or community.

   “Whatever the topic of the conversation the speaker must ‘membership’ his listener, put him into one of two or more mutually exclusive boxes. Each time a topic changes the listener must be re-membershipped, and during a conversation the same person may be membershipped as a doctor, a rugby player, a liberal, a gardener, a bridge player.”