Other forms: sabbaticals
A sabbatical is a long break from your job that your employer has agreed to, sometimes on full pay. A professor disappears for a year to finish a book; a designer takes six months off and walks back in September.
It began in universities, where staff earn one after a set number of years, and it has spread to companies that offer a sabbatical after ten years' service. You take a sabbatical, go on sabbatical, or be on sabbatical — that last pattern drops the article. It works as an adjective in front of a noun too: sabbatical leave, a sabbatical year. And it is neither a holiday nor unemployment. The job is still yours, and the time is meant for study, writing, travel or plain recovery.
1nounworkA long, approved break from work, taken for study, travel or rest.~60%
“He took a sabbatical to write his second book.”
2nounsabbaticalA period of leave granted to a university teacher for research.~27%
“She is on sabbatical at a laboratory in Berlin this year.”
3adjectiverelatingRelating to such a period of leave.~13%
“The department approved her sabbatical leave in March.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Sabbatical comes straight from Latin sabbaticus, with the ordinary English ending -al bolted on, the same -al that turns nation into national. The Latin adjective belongs to the sabbath, the appointed day of rest, and the modern word keeps the promise: rest that arrives on a schedule instead of by accident.
Latin
sabbaticus
English, today
sabbatical
From Latin sabbaticus -al.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA