leisured

English

Etymology

From leisure +‎ -ed.

Adjective

leisured (comparative more leisured, superlative most leisured)

1. Having leisure time, especially as a result of not having to work for a living.
   • 1914 September – 1915 May, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Man”, in The Valley of Fear: A Sherlock Holmes Novel, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 27 February 1915, →OCLC, part II (The Scowrers), page 164:

     The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts for the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs of the crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the rude, strong workers who did it.

   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part Two, Chapter 4:

     They had become a superior, leisured caste.

   • 2014 March 28, Robin Lane Fox, “The rich heritage of British working-class gardens”, in Financial Times:

     It is a frightful myth that the love of beauty is only to be found in leisured, educated people.

   The leisured class may produce great advances in the arts, or it may fritter away its time.

2. Leisurely, filled with leisure.
   • 1893, John Davidson, “St Valentine’s Eve” in Fleet Street Eclogues, London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane, p. 20,

     And brooding thus on my ephemeral flowers

     That smoulder in the wilderness, I thought,

     By envy sore distraught,

     Of amaranths that burn in lordly bowers,

     Of men divinely blessed with leisured hours,

   • 1904 July 9 and 16, Gilbert K[eith] Chesterton, “The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady”, in The Club of Queer Trades, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, published April 1905, →OCLC, page 249:

     "All right," said Basil, rising also and seating himself in a leisured way in an armchair. "Don't hurry for us," he said, glancing round at the litter of the room, "we have all the illustrated papers."

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 139:

     Bradly tapped the ashes from his pipe, signifying a leisured interlude over. "Time to get a move on," he said, and began to unlace his boots for wading.

   • 1972 January 3, “Leviathans”, in Time‎, archived from the original on 8 August 2013:

     Everything that Brinnin writes about is defunct. The big liners were killed, of course, by the jet plane, a device that condensed the leisured misery of a five-day crossing into seven hours of concentrated nullity or wretchedness.

   • 2016 January 26, Brennavan Sritharan, “Ordinary Beauty: Revisiting Saul Leiter’s pioneering images”, in British Journal of Photography‎:

     While his career spanned a time when quintessential New York street photography was defined as swift, sharp and precise, Leiter’s leisured, impressionist style went against the grain.

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