nine to five

nine to five adverb: from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Adverb

nine to five (not comparable)

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Nine to five, what a way to make a living; barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving.1980, Dolly Parton, “9 to 5”
- [D]uring his heyday, Bill Rodgers emphatically stated, “No runner working 9 to 5 can beat me”, attesting that training for elite distance competition had become a full-time job in itself.2006 July, Max King, “Leading Edge: It′s Good to be King”, in Running Times, page 58

nine to five (plural nine to fives)

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
- We're lost in music / Feel so alive / I quit my nine-to-five / We're lost in music1979, Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, “Lost in Music”, performed by Sister Sledge
(often) The routine imposed by such a work schedule.
- Going back to the nine to five after the weekend can be depressing.
- But going behind the scenes, you see what is absent from the social media highlights and edgy viral clips: life as an influencer is often banal and just as much of a trap as the standard nine-to-five.2026 March 11, Elle Hunt, “Surely if you rule the manosphere, you can be your own boss? These influencers aren’t even that”, in The Guardian
(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

nine to five (not comparable)

Relating to or characteristic of the routine or lifestyle centred around a typical working day.
- [see title]2000, Renata Somogyi, Inner Peace in a 9-To-5 World: Attaining Enlightenment Amidst the Chaos
Working such a job or committed to such a lifestyle.
- By day, he′s a 9-to-5 man. By night, an explorer in a field that really interests him!1976 March, advertisement, Popular Mechanics, page 44

nine to five (third-person singular simple present nine to fives, present participle nine to fiving, simple past and past participle nine to fived)

(informal, intransitive, often) To work a typical day job with office hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- What’s more, Friends offers someone for everyone: a tall, dorky, insecure guy (David Schwimmer); a ditzy, guitar-strumming blonde (Lisa Kudrow); a handsome, jean-clad palooka (Matt LeBlanc); a sarcastic, 9-to-5-ing funnyman ([Matthew] Perry); a dark-haired, blue-eyed Veronica (Courteney Cox); and a...1996 March 7, Rich Cohen, “Jennifer Aniston: The Girl Friend”, in Rolling Stone
- Pete [Best] led a quiet but contented life subsequently as a civil servant and is heading for his golden wedding. He never abandoned music, however, and set up the Pete Best Band after 20 years nine-to-fiving for HM Government.2011 July 25, Martin Wainwright, “Street cred at last for one of the 'Forgotten Beatles'”, in The Guardian

Adverb
alternative form	nine-to-five
alternative form	9 to 5
alternative form	9-to-5
alternative form	9-5
alternative form	9-2-5
alternative Yorkshire	nine while five
Noun
plural	nine to fives
Verb
third-person singular present	nine to fives
present participle	nine to fiving
past participle	nine to fived
past	nine to fived

From nine + to + five, referring to the usual office hours in many countries.

What does nine to five mean?: Nine to five means from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
What part of speech is nine to five?: Nine to five can be an adverb, a noun, an adjective or a verb.

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “nine to five.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nine_to_five. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.