Word.ws English Dictionary

garden leave

garden leave noun: a period of paid leave before termination of employment, often including non-compete contract clauses.

Noun

garden leave (uncountable)

  1. (UK) A period of paid leave before termination of employment, often including non-compete contract clauses.
    • We think he's going to start working for our competitor, so we've put on him on garden leave so he doesn't take all of our latest ideas.
    • The use of a garden leave clause means that the employee is allowed to stay at home (in the garden!) on full pay but is not allowed to work for anyone else during the life of the notice period.2004, Janice Nairns, Employment Law for Business Students, second edition, Pearson Education, →ISBN, page 128

Forms of garden leave

alternative formgardening leave

Origin of garden leave

In reference to the time a person can work on their garden during their paid leave.

Questions about garden leave

What does garden leave mean?
Garden leave means a period of paid leave before termination of employment, often including non-compete contract clauses.
What part of speech is garden leave?
Garden leave is a noun.

Words near garden leave in the dictionary

  1. garden hose
  2. garden hoses
  3. garden house
  4. garden houses
  5. Garden Island Creek
  6. garden leave
  7. garden level
  8. garden levels
  9. garden mint
  10. garden mints
  11. garden nail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: garden leave (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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