shore leave
noun
Simple meaning
Free time given to sailors of the military navy when they are off duty and allowed to disembark and spend time on land.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
shawrleevSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʃɔɹˈliv
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
militarynautical
Free time given to sailors of the military navy when they are off duty and allowed to disembark and spend time on land.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Free time given to sailors of the military navy when they are off duty and allowed to disembark and spend time on land.
Used this way, shore leave is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Ethics/values
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.