parkinson's law

1. 1.

   C. Northcote Parkinson's cynical observation that work will expand so as to fill the time available for its completion

   Broaderobservation
2. 2.

   C. Northcote Parkinson's cynical observation that the number of subordinates in an organization will increase linearly regardless of the amount of work to be done

   Broaderobservation

Questions about parkinson's law

What does parkinson's law mean?

parkinson's law means "C. Northcote Parkinson's cynical observation that work will expand so as to fill the time available for its completion". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is parkinson's law a common word?

parkinson's law is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.