[f. ABSENTEE + -ISM.] The practice of being an absentee, or of absenting oneself from duty or station. esp. The habit of landlords who live away, or in a foreign country, or otherwise at a distance from their estates.
1829. Gen. Thompson, Absenteeism, in Westm. Rev., Jan., Exerc. (1842), I. 55. The only permanent effect of any given quantity of absenteeism, is to make Ireland a smaller Ireland.
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos (1877), IV. III. 34. There was a talk of forbidding absenteeism of clergy from their benefices.
1877. Wallace, Russia, vii. 109. The prevailing absenteeism among the landlords.
