compassionate leave

1. 1.

   (military) leave granted in an emergency such as family sickness or death

   Broaderleave

   military

Questions about compassionate leave

What does compassionate leave mean?

compassionate leave means "(military) leave granted in an emergency such as family sickness or death".

Is compassionate leave a common word?

compassionate leave is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.