retirement
Pluralretirements
- 1The stage of life after permanently leaving one's job or career, especially after reaching pension age.
After forty years at the factory, he finally settled into a comfortable retirement.
Their savings should support a long and secure retirement.
Note
The everyday sense today. Its tie to pensions is the newer emphasis: leaving work for good has narrowed toward leaving it at pensionable age. It works both as a stretch of life (a long, secure retirement) and as a condition one can enter or abandon. Adrian Shooter, reflecting in 2021 on a lifetime of railway achievements, said he "tried retirement" and gave it up after two weeks.
- 2The act of permanently leaving one's career or paid employment.
The coach announced his retirement at the end of the season.
Her sudden retirement left the department without a leader.
Note
Here the word marks a moment rather than a stretch of time, which is why it pairs so readily with announce. The Chelsea captain was serenaded 48 hours after he announced his. It need not involve pension age at all. To tell it from the years after work, ask whether you could put a date on it: an announcement has a date, a comfortable retirement does not.
- 3An act of withdrawing or moving back from a place, position, or activity.
The troops' retirement across the river was carried out under cover of darkness.
Her early retirement from the negotiations puzzled the other delegates.
Similarwithdrawal, retreat, departure
Oppositeadvance
Note
The core meaning came straight from French, where retirer meant "withdraw"; English built the same noun from retire plus -ment. Here the word names a movement, a stepping back from a place or an activity, and the other uses grow from it. The life of seclusion is withdrawal held as a state, and life after work is withdrawal from a career.
- 4The state of living in seclusion, away from company and public life.
The poet lived in deep retirement, rarely receiving visitors.
Years of public service gave way to a contented retirement far from the city.
Similarseclusion, solitude, privacy, isolation
Note
Withdrawal held as a condition rather than performed as an act. It typically follows in: James George Frazer's The Golden Bough (1890) describes an heir who "lived in complete retirement in a temple," hidden from the sun and from company. Because live in retirement now usually suggests life after work, let context decide. Seclusion means being apart from people, not having stopped working.
Less common meaning
- 5A place of seclusion or privacy; a retreat to which one withdraws from company.
He withdrew each summer to a leafy retirement beyond the town walls.
The garden's far corner served as her favorite retirement from household noise.
Note
Withdrawal given an address: the word names the spot itself, the way retreat still does. In Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary: A Fiction (1788), a girl will "steal to this retirement, where human foot seldom trod." The usage is archaic now, and modern readers will take a retirement as someone leaving work. Use it only to echo older writing, and choose retreat otherwise.
Practice
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Origin
From French retirement, from retirer ("withdraw, retire"); corresponding to retire plus the suffix -ment.