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retired

UK/ɹɪˈtaɪəd/US/ɹɪˈtaɪəɹd/
adjectiveB1Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,197 of 15,258leans written

Retired means having given up work for good on reaching a certain age. A retired teacher, recently retired, retired from the army.

The age it happens at has moved with life expectancy, and mandatory retirement is unlawful in Britain except for a few jobs. In cricket, retired means leaving your innings without being out, which is a quite different thing. The French means withdrawn.

Definitions of retired

  1. 1adjectiveretiredHaving given up work for good on reaching a certain age.B1

    “My grandfather is retired now and spends his days gardening.”

retired is a state of work.

Where it comes from

  1. Vulgar Latin

    *tīrāre

  2. Old French

    retirer

  3. Middle French

    retirer — draw back

  4. English

    retire

  5. English, today

    retired

Built from

  • re- · Middle French — back
  • tirer · Middle French — draw, pull

From retire + -ed. retire comes from Middle French retirer (“draw back”), from Old French retirer, built from re- (“back”) + tirer (“draw, pull”), the latter from Vulgar Latin tīrāre, of highly uncertain origin.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

retired in the wild

  • After Chamberlain retired, the team traded for superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

    Los Angeles Lakers

  • The Lakers struggled in the early 1990s after Riley left and Abdul-Jabbar, Johnson, and Worthy retired.

    Los Angeles Lakers

  • Since then, over 150 other people have had their numbers retired, some with more than one team.

    List of Major League Baseball retired numbers

  • Teams often celebrate their retired numbers and other honored people by hanging banners with the numbers and names.

    List of Major League Baseball retired numbers

  • As of 2026, 100 storm names have been retired.

    List of retired Atlantic hurricane names

1 / 2

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

the tirer family

retiredretire

retired — used about once every 277 pages · #2,197 · point at the bar for the others

  • retirement