full nest syndrome
full nest syndrome noun: a feeling of stress, frustration or depression experienced by some middle-aged parents whose adult children have not moved out from their house.
Noun
full nest syndrome (uncountable)
- A feeling of stress, frustration or depression experienced by some middle-aged parents whose adult children have not moved out from their house.
- Their parents meanwhile have their own adjustments to make. You see, those who were prepared for an attack of the empty-nest syndrome in September are aghast at the symptoms of a full-nest syndrome in November.1976 November 26, Ellen Goodman, “Half-way house”, in The Lincoln Star, page 4
- In one variation of the full nest syndrome, parents and/or in-laws come to live with the chosen daughter, placing even more demands for nurturance on an already beleaguered middle-aged mother.1988, Glen O. Gabbard, Roy W. Menninger, editors, Medical Marriages, American Psychiatric Press, page 133
Forms of full nest syndrome
| alternative form | full-nest syndrome |
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Origin of full nest syndrome
Earliest known use is from 1976 (see first quotation below), by analogy with empty nest syndrome.
Questions about full nest syndrome
- What does full nest syndrome mean?
- Full nest syndrome means a feeling of stress, frustration or depression experienced by some middle-aged parents whose adult children have not moved out from their house.
- What part of speech is full nest syndrome?
- Full nest syndrome is a noun.
Words near full nest syndrome in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: full nest syndrome (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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