furlough
Syllables: fur·loughUK/ˈfɜː.ləʊ//ˈfɝ.loʊ/
furlough noun: especially one granted to a member of the armed forces, or to a prisoner.
Noun
furlough (countable and uncountable, plural furloughs)
- Especially one granted to a member of the armed forces, or to a prisoner.
- 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.1957, James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”, in Going to Meet the Man, Dial, published 1965
- Especially one granted to a missionary.
- The documents authorizing such leave.
- A period of unpaid time off, used by an employer to reduce costs.
- 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.2008 November 7, Jon Ortiz, “State workers rip Schwarzenegger's job furlough plan”, in The Sacramento Bee
Verb
furlough (third-person singular simple present furloughs, present participle furloughing, simple past and past participle furloughed)
- To grant a furlough to (someone).
- To have (an employee) not work in order to reduce costs; to send (someone) on furlough.
- 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.2025 January, Niklas Amberg, Richard Friberg, Chad Syverson, “Have We Got News For You: Firm-Level Evidence on the Optimal Choice of Expected Capacity Utilization”, in NBER Working Papers, number...
Proper noun capitalized: Furlough
Furlough (plural Furloughs)
- A surname.
furlough meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
furlough in Tamil
- விடுப்பளி, விடுமுறை அளி
furlough in Urdu
- رخصت
furlough in Bengali
- ছুটি, সাময়িক কর্মবিরতি
furlough in Malayalam
- താത്കാലിക വിടുതൽ, താത്കാലികാവധി, അനുവാദ അവധി
More languagesFewer languages
- furlough in Kannada
- ಆಡಿಗೆ, ಉಳಿ, ಬಿಡುವು
Forms of furlough
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | furloughs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | furloughs |
| present participle | furloughing |
| past participle | furloughed |
| past | furloughed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Furloughs |
Origin of furlough
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.
Words formed from furlough
Questions about furlough
- What does furlough mean?
- Furlough means especially one granted to a member of the armed forces, or to a prisoner.
- What is furlough in Tamil?
- Furlough in Tamil is விடுப்பளி, விடுமுறை அளி. See Furlough meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is furlough?
- Furlough can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce furlough?
- Furlough is pronounced /ˈfɜː.ləʊ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of furlough?
- The plural of furlough is furloughs.
Words near furlough in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: furlough (page history and authors); Furlough (page history and authors); furlough (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); furlough (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Furlough (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); furlough (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); furlough (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-furlough.ogg, en-au-furlough.ogg.
Cite this entry: “furlough.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/furlough. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.