empty nest
noun
a household in which one or more parents live after the children have left home: Our only child just moved into her first apartment, so we have an empty nest.
a stage in a parent’s life after the children have left home.
Words nearby empty nest
empty,
empty calorie,
empty calories,
empty cow,
empty morph,
empty nest,
empty nester,
empty set,
empty suit,
empty word,
empty-handed
Cultural definitions for empty nest
empty nest
The stage in a family's cycle when the children have grown up and left home to begin their own adult lives.
notes for empty nest
For parents, the empty nest sometimes results in midlife
anxiety.
Idioms and Phrases with empty nest
empty nest
The home of parents whose children have grown up and moved out. For example, Now that they had an empty nest, Jim and Jane opened a bed-and-breakfast. This expression, alluding to a nest from which baby birds have flown, gave rise to such related ones as empty-nester, for a parent whose children had moved out, and empty-nest syndrome, for the state of mind of parents whose children had left. [c. 1970]