Word.ws English Dictionary

office plankton

office plankton noun: anonymous office workers.

Noun

office plankton pl (plural only)

  1. (derogatory, plural, plural-only) Anonymous office workers.
    • The fourth group is made up of office employees, the so-called "office plankton," "white-collar workers" or ...2008, The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, page 7
    • They were workaholics in their 20s — “office plankton,” as they are sometimes called here — punchy from an apocalypse-themed office party, some headed for winter vacations in Egypt and Turkey.2011 December 23, Ellen Barry, “Young and Connected, 'Office Plankton' Protesters Surprise Russia”, in The New York Times

Examples of office plankton in a sentence

  • But how can you invent a distinction if you feel you are part of ordinary office plankton?2012, Polina Kudiyevskaya, Gennadiy Balashov, How to Become an Adventurist? The Reflections of a Millionaire:
  • What type of personality and whose values — the traditional worker or "the office plankton" — are preferable?2013, Slovo: Issues 63-65:
  • Office plankton is mentioned often are numerous small employees, which salary is a little connected with result of their work.2018, Due Machiavelli, Niccolo Machiavelli, The President / The Prince:
  • Washington office plankton, as it turns out, are unhappy that the commander-in-chief did not heed their opinion.2019 November 6, Gary Gindler, “Who Can Stop Trump Now?”, in American Thinker:

Origin of office plankton

Calque of Russian о́фисный планкто́н (ófisnyj planktón) having the same meaning.

Questions about office plankton

What does office plankton mean?
Office plankton means anonymous office workers.
How do you use office plankton in a sentence?
But how can you invent a distinction if you feel you are part of ordinary office plankton?
What part of speech is office plankton?
Office plankton is a noun.

Words near office plankton in the dictionary

  1. office machines
  2. office mate
  3. office mates
  4. office of ease
  5. office party
  6. office plankton
  7. office politics
  8. office pool
  9. office suite
  10. office suites
  11. office up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: office plankton (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: “office plankton.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/office_plankton. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.