leisure Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science & Medicine (3 ed.)
... A time in which individuals are not compelled to do anything, and are free to choose to relax or to take part in a leisure activity. Leisure has important social functions, including relief from the demands and restrictions of...
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Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (3 ed.)
...leisure [ME] Leisure is from Old French leisir , based on Latin licere ‘be allowed’. The phrase a lady of leisure defining a woman who has lots of free time, dates only from the...
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A Dictionary of Economics (5 ed.)
...leisure Time spent not working. In many economic models leisure is regarded as a consumption good from which utility is derived. The measurement of leisure raises questions about whether time spent travelling to work if employed, or looking for work if unemployed, should be counted. The provision of leisure facilities, including cultural activities, sport, and entertainments, is a major sector in modern...
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The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (4 ed.)
... leisure lady ( or man or gentleman ) of leisure a person who does not need to earn a living or whose time is free from obligations to ...
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A Dictionary of Travel and Tourism
... The personal time available for discretionary use after undertaking work and attending to essential needs such as sleeping and eating. Activities pursued during leisure time are broadly described as recreation. Hence, leisure travel is travel for pleasure, as distinct from business travel, which is undertaken in connection with work; the terms ‘business travel agent’ and ‘leisure travel agent’ refer to travel retailers specializing in either of these...
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A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (3 ed.)
... Spare time that is available for relaxation or activities not related to work or obtaining...
leisure Reference library
Dictionary of the Social Sciences
...Considerable sociological attention has been paid to the social significance of leisure—perhaps most famously by Thorstein Veblen , who treated leisure as a form of competitive display among modern social elites. Cultural studies and media studies have also focused attention on the nature of the consumption of leisure goods—in many instances rehabilitating the countercultural significance of leisure and nonwork time from the determinist views of the Frankfurt School. Leisure has long been an issue in philosophical and political accounts of modernity,...
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A Dictionary of Human Geography
...or reading. What counts as leisure is therefore also a matter of context. Leisure overlaps with, but can be roughly distinguished from recreation , generally an outdoor activity undertaken within the vicinity, and tourism , activities taking place further from home and usually commercialized. In practice, studies of leisure, recreation, and tourism are closely related. The scholarly study of leisure has tracked its historical development from a mainly elite phenomenon in the late 19th century to a mass activity in the 20th century. In 1850 , for...
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Alexander Kazhdan
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
... (σχολή), as a form of philosophical behavior, designated in antiquity both scholarly discussion and scholarly speculation on nature and “origin.” Church fathers renounced the ancient concept of philosophical leisure: Basil the Great (PG 29:429A) condemned “the evil leisure of the Athenians” that was still being imitated by his contemporaries, who were trying to invent new concepts and thus fell within the embraces of “dirty and evil spirits.” He contrasted this leisure to “a good and beneficial schole ,” which was, in the words of Athanasios of...
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A Dictionary of Sports Studies
... The word derives from the Latin verb licere , meaning ‘to allow’. A sense of the permissible is therefore built in to the term, though in much analytical work on leisure the word has been understood as coupled with the notion of labour or work; as was the case in Greek thought, Aristotle seeing leisure as a serious business: ‘We conduct business in order to have leisure,’ he wrote. Leisure in this sense is not merely what is permissible, but is an ideal state to which the citizen can aspire, in which to live a life of leisure is a primary goal of human...
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Karla A. Henderson and Claire Langhamer
The Oxford Encyclopedia Women in World History
...leisure, class, age, race, and the variety of women's leisure experiences. Green, Eileen , Sandra Hebron , and Diane Woodward . Women's Leisure, What Leisure? Houndsmills, U.K.: Macmillan, 1990. Describes the different leisure experiences that may occur between women and men and the varied circumstances of women that influence their leisure. Henderson, Karla A. , M. Deborah Bialeschki , Susan M. Shaw , and Valeria J. Freysinger . Both Gains and Gaps: Feminist Perspectives on Women's Leisure . State College, Pa.: Venture, 1996. An update of A Leisure of...
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Douglas J. Allen
The Oxford Companion to British History (2 ed.)
... may be defined as the amusements, entertainments, and creative pursuits enjoyed by people in their non-working hours. Our modern understanding of leisure is different from the classical ideal of the worthwhile pursuit of the arts by a leisured class freed from the necessity of work. Contrary to its innocuous image, leisure is in fact one of the most controversial and contested areas of British social and cultural history, with a tradition of class-related disputes over how leisure time should be spent and how far it should be controlled. An underlying...
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Will B. Mackintosh
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History
... Leisure practices are deeply embedded in social, cultural, economic, and religious contexts, and ideas about leisure have varied widely throughout American history. Leisure has historically both reflected and constructed its larger society, and as a result it has evolved alongside the broader culture from the colonial period onward. Leisure in Colonial Societies. Colonial leisure practices varied widely because the colonies were so socially, religiously, and economically diverse. Nevertheless, a common thread ran throughout colonial experience: leisure...
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Suzanne Morton
The Oxford Companion to Canadian History
... . Intimately connected with work, and dependent on a large number of variables—including gender, class, age, ethnicity, health, season, and moral values—leisure is a relative idea. As paid labour became the norm, leisure and work were separated, and each took on a formal meaning. Leisure has been experienced as enjoyment and community building, but also as struggle—to gain the nine-hour day in the 19th century, for example, or the five-day work week in the 20th. It has been a site of generational conflict and the redefinition of gender behaviour, as the...
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Ruth V. Russell
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World
...as their facilitations with information technology have and will change fundamental ways people play. Technology aids and extends leisure expressions, and technology itself has also become a leisure expression. An illustration of perhaps both of these relationships is simulated leisure. Leisure activities and settings are being simulated at an unprecedented rate, and some predict that within the next decade, imitation leisure will dominate. Artificial surfaces for ice hockey, white-water kayaking, body surfing, and rock climbing, along with virtual...
Leisure. Reference library
Paul S. Boyer
The Oxford Companion to United States History
...Leisure. Recreation and leisure figure importantly in America's cultural, social, and economic history. In the Colonial and earlier national eras, leisure activities were shaped by the agrarian nature of the economy, as well as by regional, gender , and class differences. In colonial New England , leisure was subject to religious strictures and close community oversight, though the Puritans, contrary to popular stereotypes, enjoyed beer drinking, games, recreational hunting, and social occasions, and the region's court records recount many instances of...
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The Oxford Companion to the Body
...Economic maximizing and consumerism have induced workers not only to opt for overtime but to choose timesaving devices to aid in their leisure. This has meant a saturation of free time with leisure goods and their maintenance, thus creating what Staffan Linder calls a ‘harried leisure class’ of consumers. Decline in the rates of growth in the West from the 1970s and the rise of the Pacific Rim economies, where leisure time still does not match Western standards, has weakened the influence of Western labour and efforts to reduce worktime. The more than...
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Oxford Essential Quotations (6 ed.)
... Leisure see also Holidays , Work We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure. Gerald Brenan 1894 – 1987 British travel writer and novelist Thoughts in a Dry Season (1978) What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. W. H. Davies 1871 – 1940 Welsh poet ‘Leisure’ (1911) What is this life if, full of care no time to stand and stare no time to stand and stare Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labour by taking up another. Anatole ...
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Garner’s Modern English Usage (4 ed.)
... (= time spent in relaxation or at ease) is pronounced / lee -zhәr/ in AmE or / lezh -әr/ in World English—but preferably not / lay -zhәr/ ...
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A Dictionary of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
...leisure A category of occupations that includes those concerned with having fun and enjoying life which the person is usually under no obligation to perform. Different models use different terminology but leisure occupations may include play, sport, and numerous types of socializing. Further reading: Sellar, B. and Stanley, M. (2010). Leisure. In M. Curtin , M. Molineux , and J. Supyk-Mellson (Eds.), Occupational Therapy and Physical Dysfunction: Enabling Occupation (sixth ed., pp. 17–26). Edinburgh:...
