Meaning of 9 to 5 | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A day job, especially at a large company (emphasizing banality).
2. The workday itself (the period of the day between 9 am and 5 pm).
3. One who works in a job from 9 am to 5 pm.

Equivalents

Examples

“1976 March, advertisement, Popular Mechanics, page 44, By day, he′s a 9-to-5 man. By night, an explorer in a field that really interests him!”

“Keisha works a 9-to-5, picks up their son from the day care and then heads home to prepare dinner for the family.”

“[D]uring his heyday, Bill Rodgers emphatically stated, “No runner working 9 to 5 can beat me”, attesting that training for elite distance competition had become a full-time job in itself.”

“2010 January-February, Lou′s Clues: Getting to Work (editorial), Ancestry Magazine, page 6, And you might decide that our 9-to-5s today just aren′t so tough.”

“Stock markets crash, businesses go bankrupt, and 9-to-5s can disappear from layoffs and downsizing.”

CEFR level