pensioner

[ pen-shuh-ner ]
See synonyms for pensioner on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a person who receives or lives on a pension.

  2. a person who works only for pay without regard to the value of the work; a hireling.

  1. a student at Cambridge University who pays the cost to dine in the commons and other expenses, and is not supported by any foundation.

  2. Obsolete. a gentleman-at-arms.

Origin of pensioner

1
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English; from Anglo-French; pension, + -er2

Other words from pensioner

  • pen·sion·er·ship, noun
  • non·pen·sion·er, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use pensioner in a sentence

  • It was discovered that 27 members of the English parliament had been pensioners on the government.

  • There are a lot of old servants, old pensioners and old horses, all eating their heads off here, and doing no work.

  • Your Irish pensioners would starve, if they had no other fund to live on than the taxes granted by English authority.

    English: Composition and Literature | W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
  • If they had no other fund to live on than the taxes granted by English authority, your Irish pensioners would starve.

    English: Composition and Literature | W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
  • Newton smiled his thanks to the considerate old pensioners, as they stumped out of the door, and left him alone with his father.

    Newton Forster | Captain Frederick Marryat

British Dictionary definitions for pensioner

pensioner

/ (ˈpɛnʃənə) /


noun
  1. a person who is receiving a pension, esp an old-age pension from the state

  2. a person dependent on the pay or bounty of another

  1. obsolete, British another name for gentleman-at-arms

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012