社畜 (shachiku)

What it means

1. 1.

   A corporate drone: someone whose life has been wholly absorbed by their employer. Almost always self-applied, with dark humour.

Literally: Company livestock.

Examples with translations

• 今日も終電、完全に社畜だわ。

  Last train again. I'm company cattle at this point.

• 有給なんて社畜には無縁だよ。

  Paid leave is not a thing that happens to people like me.

Where it comes from

会社 ('company') fused with 家畜 ('livestock'), coined in the late 1980s at the height of the bubble economy. It remains one of the bluntest words Japanese has for its own working culture.

First attested: late 1980s

Other forms

Romanised as:

shachiku