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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

  1. A person who never takes time off from work becomes boring and bored.


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Idioms and Phrases

Hard work without time for recreation is not good for one's health, as in If Harry keeps up that grueling schedule, he's headed for a breakdown—all work and no play isn't healthy . A proverb included in James Howell's collection of 1659, this phrase remains so familiar that it is often shortened, as in the example.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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