For the purpose of this chapter, unless clearly indicated by the context, words and phrases shall have the following meaning:
(1) "Beneficiary" shall mean any person or persons designated by a firefighter in a writing filed with the board, and who shall be entitled to receive any benefits of a deceased firefighter under this chapter.
(2) "Board" shall mean the municipal firefighters' pension board.
(3) "Child or children" shall mean a child or children unmarried and under eighteen years of age.
(4) "Contributions" shall mean and include all sums deducted from the salary of firefighters and paid into the fund as hereinafter provided.
(5) "Disability" shall mean and include injuries or sickness sustained as a result of the performance of duty.
(6) "Fire department" shall mean the regularly organized, full time, paid, and employed force of firefighters of the municipality.
(7) "Firefighter" shall mean any person regularly or temporarily, or as a substitute, employed and paid as a member of a fire department, who has passed a civil service examination for firefighter and who is actively employed as a firefighter; and shall include any "prior firefighter."
(8) "Fund" shall mean the firefighters' pension fund created herein.
(9) "Municipality" shall mean every city, town, and regional fire protection service authority, having a regularly organized full time, paid, fire department employing firefighters.
(10) "Performance of duty" shall mean the performance of work and labor regularly required of firefighters and shall include services of an emergency nature rendered while off regular duty, but shall not include time spent in traveling to work before answering roll call or traveling from work after dismissal at roll call.
(11) "Prior firefighter" shall mean a firefighter who was actively employed as a firefighter of a fire department prior to the first day of January, 1947, and who continues such employment thereafter.
(12) "Retired firefighter" shall mean and include a person employed as a firefighter and retired under the provisions of chapter 50, Laws of 1909, as amended.
(13) "Widow or widower" means the surviving wife, husband, or state registered domestic partner of a retired firefighter who was retired on account of length of service and who was lawfully married to, or in a state registered domestic partnership with, such firefighter; and whenever that term is used with reference to the wife or former wife, husband or former husband, or current or former state registered domestic partner of a retired firefighter who was retired because of disability, it shall mean his or her lawfully married wife, husband, or state registered domestic partner on the date he or she sustained the injury or contracted the illness that resulted in his or her disability. Said term shall not mean or include a surviving wife, husband, or state registered domestic partner who by process of law within one year prior to the retired firefighter's death, collected or attempted to collect from him or her funds for the support of herself or himself or for his or her children.