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parkinson law

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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.
Also, Parkinson's Law.


Origin:
1950–55; after C. N. Parkinson
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Cultural Dictionary

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.”

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

Parkinson''s Law 
1955, (first 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."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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