Furlough
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A leave of absence or vacation.; Especially one granted to a member of the armed forces, or to a prisoner. US, countable, uncountable
"And I had a lot of things on my mind and I pretty well forgot my promise to Mama until I got shipped home on a special furlough for her funeral."
- 2 a temporary leave of absence from military duty wordnet
- 3 A leave of absence or vacation.; Especially one granted to a missionary. British, countable, uncountable
- 4 The documents authorizing such leave. countable, uncountable
- 5 A period of unpaid time off, used by an employer to reduce costs. countable, uncountable
"The state estimates the one-day-a-month furlough spread over the 18 months of the plan would amount to a 5 percent cut in pay."
- 1 To grant a furlough to (someone). transitive
- 2 grant a leave to wordnet
- 3 To have (an employee) not work in order to reduce costs; to send (someone) on furlough. transitive
"This implies, for example, that firms should not revise their estimated production capacity downwards when furloughing workers, but should do so after laying off staff permanently."
- 4 dismiss, usually for economic reasons wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"The soldier returned home on a furlough."
Etymology
From Dutch verlof (“furlough”), probably from Middle Low German verlōf (“furlough, permission”) (possibly via German Verlaub), from the verb verlōven (“to allow”), from Old Saxon far- + lōvian (“to trust, believe”). From Middle Low German also German Verlaub, Danish forlov. Doublet of leave.
English surname, probably a variant of Farlow.
Related phrases
More for "furlough"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.