honorary

US/ˈɑn.əˌɹɛɹ.i/

adjectiveB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,850 of 15,258mostly written

Honorary means given as an honour, with no duties or pay attached. An honorary degree, honorary president, honorary member.

An honorary degree is awarded without the work and cannot be used to claim the qualification, though people do. An honorary post is unpaid, which is the older sense, and it is a different word from honourable.

Definitions of honorary

1adjectivehonoraryGiven as an honour, with no duties or pay attached.B2+
“He was made an honorary member of the club after fifty years of support.”

honorary is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin honorarius comes from honor. The word first meant done as an honour rather than for payment.

Latin
honōrārius
English, today
honorary

From honor + ary, modelled after French honoraire, from Latin honōrārius.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

honorary in the wild

Members of the government are not involved in the recommendation of appointments, other than for military and honorary awards.
Order of Australia
Commonwealth citizens who are not subjects of the British monarch and foreign nationals may be made honorary members.
Order of the Bath
A title of honor or honorary title is a title bestowed upon individuals or organizations as an award in recognition of their merits.
Title of honor
Some historical honorary titles may be bought, like certain titles of nobility.
Title of honor
Examples of such titles include honorary professor, honorary reader, honorary lecturer, and honorary fellow.
Honorary title (academic)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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