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Parkinson's law

or Parkinson's Law

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noun
the statement, expressed facetiously as if a law of physics, that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
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Origin of Parkinson's law

First recorded in 1950–55; after C. N. Parkinson
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

British Dictionary definitions for Parkinson's law

Parkinson's law

noun
the notion, expressed facetiously as a law of economics, that work expands to fill the time available for its completion

Word Origin for Parkinson's law

C20: named after C. N. Parkinson (1909–93), British historian and writer, who formulated it
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Parkinson's law

Parkinson's Law

A law propounded by the twentieth-century British scholar C. Northcote Parkinson. It states, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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