Word.ws English Dictionary

9-5

9-5 is the alternative form of nine to five.

Meaning of nine to five

Noun

nine to five (plural nine to fives)

  1. A typical day job that occupies these working hours; (also) the working day itself.
    • He done quit his nine to five, he drink full-time / And now he’s living in a bottle1974, Gil Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson, “The Bottle”, in Winter in America
  2. (often) The routine imposed by such a work schedule.
    • Going back to the nine to five after the weekend can be depressing.
  3. (broadly) A person who works such a day job.
    • Stock markets crash, businesses go bankrupt, and 9-to-5s can disappear from layoffs and downsizing.2009, Scott Brown, Treat Your Poker Like a Business, page 101
    Synonyms:
    nine-to-fiver

See all 7 meanings of nine to five

Forms of 9-5

plural9-5s

Questions about 9-5

What is 9-5 the alternative form of?
9-5 is the alternative form of nine to five.

Words near 9-5 in the dictionary

  1. 9 to 5
  2. 9 to 5s
  3. 9-1-1
  4. 9-1-1s
  5. 9-2-5
  6. 9-5
  7. 9-5s
  8. 9-8 suspension
  9. 9-8 suspensions
  10. 9-9-6
  11. 9-gon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 9-5 (page history and authors); nine to five (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “9-5.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/9-5. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.