Parkinson's law

or Parkinson's Law

noun

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

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. 2019

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

Word Origin and History for parkinson's law

Parkinson's Law

1955 (in the "Economist" of Nov. 19), named for its deviser, British historian and journalist Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909-1993): "work expands to fill the time available for its completion."

parkinson's law in Culture

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.”