English Dictionary

AT LEISURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does at leisure mean? 

AT LEISURE (adverb)
  The adverb AT LEISURE has 1 sense:

1. in an unhurried way or at one's convenienceplay

  Familiarity information: AT LEISURE used as an adverb is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


AT LEISURE (adverb)


Sense 1

Meaning:

In an unhurried way or at one's convenience

Synonyms:

at leisure; leisurely

Context example:

he traveled leisurely


 Context examples 


“No,” cried Mr. Knightley, “that need not be the consequence. Let them be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure.”

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She was not long at leisure, however, for such considerations.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Having considered me at leisure, he said—What made you ill yesterday?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

You made a quiet little round game of it, among a family group, and you played it out at leisure.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I should be at leisure.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

There stood by him, on each side, a young page with flaps in their hands, and when they saw he was at leisure, one of them gently struck his mouth, and the other his right ear; at which he startled like one awaked on the sudden, and looking towards me and the company I was in, recollected the occasion of our coming, whereof he had been informed before.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Something like tranquillity might now be hoped for; and accordingly, when Rebecca had been prevailed on to carry away the tea-things, and Mrs. Price had walked about the room some time looking for a shirt-sleeve, which Betsey at last hunted out from a drawer in the kitchen, the small party of females were pretty well composed, and the mother having lamented again over the impossibility of getting Sam ready in time, was at leisure to think of her eldest daughter and the friends she had come from.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She began to think that he must be in liquor;—the strangeness of such a visit, and of such manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this impression she immediately rose, saying, Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe—I am not at leisure to remain with you longer.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I have been very negligent—but are you now at leisure to satisfy me in these particulars?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"Many hands make light work." (English proverb)

"A spared body only goes twenty-four hours further that another" (Breton proverb)

"The envious person is a sad person." (Arabic proverb)

"One swats the fly only if it annoys that person." (Cypriot proverb)


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