quiet quit

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Back-formation from quiet quitting.

Verb

quiet quit (third-person singular simple present quiet quits, present participle quiet quitting, simple past and past participle quiet quit or quiet quitted)

  1. (ambitransitive, idiomatic) To cease overachieving at one's workplace to focus on one's personal life; to do only what is reasonably or contractually required. [since 2022]
    Near-synonym: work to rule
    He said that he is going to quiet quit his job because he wants to focus on his family.
    • 1870, Mark Twain, edited by Fischer, Victor, et al., Mark Twain’s Letters, volume 4, Elmira, N.Y., To C. A. King 22 July 1870:
      Nothing would give me greater pleasure if I were still in the field, but I trust & believe I have permanently quiet quit all manner of lecturing & public speaking. With many thanks & many regrets— Yrs Truly Sam'. L. Clemens.
    • [2022 July 26, Jake Alban, “‘Quitting the idea of going above and beyond’: TikToker says he’s ‘quiet quitting’ his job, sparking debate”, in The Daily Dot‎[1], retrieved 30 July 2022:
      The TikToker [@zkchillin] narrates in the video: “I recently learned about this term called quiet quitting, where you’re not outright quitting your job but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond. […]”]
    • 2022 August 31, Perisha Kudhail, “Quiet quitting: The workplace trend taking over TikTok”, in BBC News‎[2], archived from the original on 1 September 2022:
      Emma O'Brien, 31, from London quiet quit from her job as a personal assistant within the retail sector, after also being turned down for a pay rise.
    • 2022 October 3, Sarah Green Carmichael, “Don’t quit quiet: work quiet and quit loud”, in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, page A14:
      Instead of managers worrying about quiet quitting, I think they should take away one lesson: Don't rely so heavily on employees going above and beyond their job description.
    • 2023 February 9, Jason Lalljee, “‘Resenteeism’: When you hate your job enough to do more than ‘quiet quit’ but are too anxious about the economy to leave”, in Business Insider, New York:
      Part of what has enabled workers to participate in quiet quitting and the Great Resignation is the rare amount of leverage they've had amid a persisting labor shortage, but “resenteeism” signals that people are finding themselves in a tougher spot with the cost of living and a fear of layoffs.
    • 2023 August, Lu Mingxiao, Abdullah Al Mamun, Xuelin Chen, Qing Yang, Mohammad Masukujjaman, “Quiet quitting during COVID-19: the role of psychological empowerment”, in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, volume 10, number 1, issue published December 2023, page 485:
      Under these circumstances, an increasing number of university lecturers in Chinese universities seem to experience job burnout and experience QQ. There is an urgent need to examine and represent the formation and development of quiet-quitting intentions among Chinese university lecturers.
    • 2025 October 12, Erin O. White, “Why I Had to Kill Family Dinner”, in The New York Times‎[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      “I can’t make another dinner,” I told my mother, my sister, my best friend. “I’m quiet quitting dinner,” I told people I barely knew. “You’re on your own for dinner tonight,” I told my wife and kids.
      (Can we archive this URL?)
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see quiet,‎ quit.

Derived terms

See also

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