quiet quitting
/ˈkwaɪət ˈkwɪtɪŋ/
Very CommonDoing only what your job actually requires and nothing more, without formally quitting.
The name is somewhat misleading. You're not quitting anything. You're setting a boundary at the edge of your job description. Media coverage often framed it negatively; workers often framed it as basic self-preservation.
Real-world examples5 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | I'm quiet quitting. 5pm hits and the laptop closes. Done. | The speaker has set a hard stop on work and refuses to extend hours. | tiktok, 2022 |
| 02 | They called it quiet quitting. I call it only doing the job I was hired for. | The framing as 'quitting' is unfair. This is just meeting basic expectations. | x, 2022 |
| 03 | My manager told me I seemed disengaged. Sir, I am quiet quitting because you denied my raise for the third year. | Disengagement is a direct response to the employer's failure to recognize the work. | reddit, 2022 |
| 04 | Before quiet quitting was a thing I just called it 'not dying for a company that would fire me in a second'. | The behavior existed before the term, and the term just named something people were already doing. | tiktok, 2022 |
| 05 | Quiet quitting is setting boundaries. The fact that it has a name tells you how bad things got. | Having a term for basic work-life separation reveals how normalized overwork became. | x, 2022 |
Use it when
- Someone is choosing to do the minimum at work as a deliberate decision, not as a failure.
- Describing a boundary-setting approach to employment.
- Talking about the trend of workers disengaging from going above and beyond.
Do not use it when
- Someone actually quit their job.Use “great-resignation” instead.
- Someone is being visibly disruptive or disrespectful at work.
Quiet quitting vs anti-work
quiet quitting
Quiet quitting is staying employed but setting firm limits on what you'll give.
VS
anti-work
Anti-work questions whether you should have to work this much at all.
Origin and context
The term went viral in mid-2022 after a TikTok by user @zkchillin used it, though the concept had been discussed earlier. It became a major media topic as employers pushed workers to return to office after the pandemic.
- First seen
- 2022
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/quiet-quitting-movementUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0