Absentee

How to spell absentee

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce absentee

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does absentee mean?

1. nounA person who is not present where they are expected to be, such as at work, school, or a meeting.
2. adjectiveRelating to or describing someone who is away rather than present in person.

Absentee in a sentence

• noun

  The register listed every absentee in the morning class.

• adjective

  The flat was owned by an absentee landlord who lived overseas.

• noun

  The manager phoned each absentee to check on their welfare.

• adjective

  She requested an absentee ballot because she would be travelling on election day.

Where does absentee come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'absent', which English took in the 1300s from the Latin absentem, the accusative of absens. That form was the present participle of abesse, meaning 'to be away', a compound of ab 'away from' and esse 'to be'. The distinctive ending was added later, in the seventeenth century, using the noun suffix -ee that English had absorbed from the French past participle ending -e; it normally marks the person to whom something is done (as in payee or employee), but here it was stretched to label the person who is in a particular state, namely the one who is away. The very same esse 'to be' lies behind the opposite word 'present', so the spelling trap is really just remembering the silent path from ab- through the -sent- core to the doubled vowel sound at the close. Knowing that -ee is a true suffix, not a casual doubling, explains why the word ends in two e letters rather than one.

How the word is built

• ab- (away from)
• sent (from Latin esse/sens: to be, being present)
• -ee (one who is in a state)