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• empty nester
  empty nester

  noun

  a parent whose children have reached adulthood and left home.
• empty-nester
  empty-nester

  noun

  a married person whose children have grown up and left home

empty nester

American  

Or empty-nester

noun

1. a parent whose children have reached adulthood and left home.

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empty-nester British  

noun

1. informal a married person whose children have grown up and left home

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Etymology

Origin of empty nester

First recorded in 1960–65; empty nest + -er ¹

Example Sentences

For Veronica P., an empty nester who moved to Olive Dell in March 2024, the ranch offered her acceptance.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 5, 2025

Now, I'm an empty nester with an as-yet unpublished novel in a marriage where we can finish each other's sentences.

From Salon • Aug. 31, 2024

It was Sandy Stokes — the sandpaper-voiced empty nester who had white shag carpet in her California living room and an uncanny empathy for the Czechoslovakian immigrants next door — who gave me the book.

From Washington Post • May 1, 2023

Some residents of middle housing in Kirkland are like empty nester Bruce Klouzal, who downsized into a cottage cluster in the Juanita neighborhood with his wife in 2017, after their kids grew up.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 26, 2023

Duplass’s Dobson, an acclaimed novelist, recent widower and now an empty nester, is struggling to hold himself together.

From New York Times • May 13, 2022