farewell address

American  

noun

1. (initial capital letters) a statement that President George Washington published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1796 to announce that he would not run for a third term and to give his views on foreign and domestic policy.

2. a speech delivered by someone upon leaving a job, post, etc.

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Example Sentences

His farewell address of September 1796 included the stark warning that all democracies were vulnerable to future challenge by autocrats and unlawful usurpers of power.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 27, 2026

“What we accomplished was not insignificant,” he added in his farewell address.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 22, 2026

In 1796, its first president, George Washington, announced he wouldn't seek a third term with a farewell address that still resonates today.

From BBC • Jan. 8, 2026

In doing so, he helped lay the groundwork for what President Dwight D. Eisenhower would, in his farewell address to Congress in 1961, warn against as “the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”

From Salon • Jul. 22, 2025

In a curiously rambling farewell address, he accused cabinet members of a breach of trust, of ignoring him and of playing into the hands of the African National Congress.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela