Word.ws English Dictionary

pensionnaire

pensionnaire noun: someone receiving a pension.

Noun

pensionnaire (plural pensionnaires)

  1. (obsolete) Someone receiving a pension.
  2. Someone who boards at a lodging-house, school, or other institution; a boarder, especially in France or other European countries.
    • [H]e found she had not taken the veil; but her mother being lately dead, had entered as a pensionaire, until her family-affairs could be adjusted.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
  3. A junior member of the Comédie Française.

Forms of pensionnaire

pluralpensionnaires
alternative formpensionaire

Origin of pensionnaire

From Middle French pensionnaire, pensionaire.

Questions about pensionnaire

What does pensionnaire mean?
Pensionnaire means someone receiving a pension.
What part of speech is pensionnaire?
Pensionnaire is a noun.
What is the plural of pensionnaire?
The plural of pensionnaire is pensionnaires.

Words near pensionnaire in the dictionary

  1. pensionhouses
  2. pensioni
  3. pensioning
  4. pensioning off
  5. pensionless
  6. pensionnaire
  7. pensionnaires
  8. pensions
  9. pensions off
  10. pensive
  11. pensively

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pensionnaire (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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