definition of the word absentee

absent + -ee

• Rhymes: -iː

absentee (plural absentees)

1. A person who is absent from his or her employment, school, post, duty, etc.
2. (especially UK, historical) A landholder who lives in another district or country than the one in which his estate is situated.
   • 1840, Lord Byron, "Letter 374: to Mr. Moore (24 May 1820)," in The Works of Lord Byron: With His Letters and Journals, and His Life, John Murray (London), p. 317,

   My trustees are going to lend Earl Blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a Dublin mortgage. Only think of my becoming an Irish absentee!

• absenteeism

• “absentee” in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
• “absentee” in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “absentee” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.

• This page was last modified on 13 September 2008, at 20:44.
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