pension
Americannoun
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pensions
plural
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a fixed amount, other than wages, paid at regular intervals to a person or to the person's surviving dependents in consideration of past services, age, merit, poverty, injury or loss sustained, etc..
a retirement pension.
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an allowance, annuity, or subsidy.
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(in France and elsewhere in continental Europe)
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a boardinghouse or small hotel.
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room and board.
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verb (used with object)
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pensions,
present (3rd person singular)
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pensioned,
past participle, past
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pensioning
present participle
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to grant or pay a pension to.
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to cause to retire on a pension (usually followed byoff ).
noun
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a relatively cheap boarding house
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another name for full board
noun
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a regular payment made by the state to people over a certain age to enable them to subsist without having to work
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a regular payment made by an employer to former employees after they retire
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a regular payment made to a retired person as the result of his or her contributions to a personal pension scheme
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any regular payment made on charitable grounds, by way of patronage, or in recognition of merit, service, etc
a pension paid to a disabled soldier
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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nonpensionableadjective
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pensionableadjective
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pensionlessadjective
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unpensionableadjective
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unpensionedadjective
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unpensioningadjective
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well-pensionedadjective
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pensionablyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pensionsimple
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pensionssimple
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have pensionedperfect
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has pensionedperfect
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am pensioningprogressive
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are pensioningprogressive
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is pensioningprogressive
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have been pensioningperfect progressive
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has been pensioningperfect progressive
Past
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pensionedsimple
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had pensionedperfect
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was pensioningprogressive
-
were pensioningprogressive
-
had been pensioningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pension
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Old French pensïon, from Latin pēnsiōn-, stem of pēnsiō “measured weight,” hence, “payment, rent,” from pēns(us) “weighed” (past participle of pendere “to hang, weigh out, pay by weight”) + -iō -ion
Explanation
A pension is a regular payment, usually from a company you worked for, that allows you to survive without working after you retire. In used to be common for someone to spend their entire career at one company, and then retire at 65 and receive a pension: regular payments of enough money to live on in old age. Nowadays, not that many jobs offer pensions, and it's hard for companies that do to pay for them, which is why you're likely to hear this word when people are arguing about budget cuts. It's also a verb: if you pension your employee, you give them a pension. How nice of you!
Vocabulary lists containing pension
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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This Week in Words: February 16 - 22, 2019
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The Great Depression and The New Deal
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Days later, his monthly military pension was cut from £550 to £365.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
A global consortium that includes a pension fund manager from Quebec is currently assessing financing options for the rail project.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Indumati says her pension is so small she has to rely on the generosity of friends, and roughly £100 a week in benefits, to cover her rent, bills and food costs.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
“I didn’t have any income coming in, so at least I could get my pension from the union and my healthcare and collect Social Security.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026
A good many persons of the pension had gone over to the Chênière Caminada in Beaudelet’s lugger to hear mass.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
Hundreds of former members of the military have had their pensions slashed after receiving letters telling them to repay thousands of pounds because of a clerical error.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
“This flexibility can be particularly beneficial if you have other income sources like pensions, Social Security, or taxable brokerage accounts, and don’t need to rely on your IRA for living expenses,” Gudorf says.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026
That growth was likely influenced by sharp, inflation-linked increases in benefits, pensions and the minimum wage.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
But regulators and analysts worry insurers are chasing complex offshore investments that introduce new risks into the industry as part of the pensions boom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
For many, it also meant giving up their shops, their businesses, their pensions, and their life savings.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
By then she had already been medically pensioned out of West Yorkshire Police.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2023
The family is now composed of the same sort of banal attention-seekers and time-servers as the rest of Europe’s pensioned aristocracy, which includes Facebook-addled coup plotters and Epstein island guests of honor.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2023
The airline struggled with a 51-day pilots' strike between September and November 2017, grounding half its fleet and resulting in dozens of pilots being fired, while others resigned or were pensioned off.
From Reuters ● Nov. 25, 2021
It’s also an issue in the United States, although a lot of independent groups and regulators put forth measures to find homes for retired and pensioned horses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2020
“Not that it need come to that,” Mr. Owen blurted, meaning Tansy might marry and be saved before she was pensioned off.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
Downpour and Inferno are states that people drive between pensioning their senators and whitegoods.
From New York Times ● Apr. 15, 2022
More important, he ruled that pensioning railway employes had nothing to do with regulating interstate commerce.
From Time Magazine Archive
With this eloquent plea, Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel last year won over reluctant Congressmen to his plan for pensioning off India's princes.
From Time Magazine Archive
From Berlin they learned that Handsome Adolf himself had suppressed news of the Habicht ultimatum in Germany and was thinking of pensioning or retiring him from his post as "Inspector General for Austria."
From Time Magazine Archive
No provision had yet been made for retiring disabled officers of the army, and pensioning the civil list was not even dreamed of.
From Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860 by James Gillespie Blaine
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
