written by Lilian Ndongmo. ESL Teacher

Workafrolic was coined in 2005 by Richard St. John during a TED presentation. 


Workafrolic is a combination of the words “work” and ‘frolic”.

Frolic (verb) means to have fun; to behave or act playfully; to engage in a lighthearted, playful activity.

Work  + frolic = workafrolic   workafrolic

A workafrolic is someone who is passionate about his job, who loves what he does and works very hard at it, but who also has fun. A workafrolic usually works hard because he is passionate about what he does and not necessarily for the money he will get out of it.


If work + frolic = workafrolic, what does the “a” stand for?

I believe that the “a” was borrowed from the popular “workaholicworkaholic  to make “workafrolic” easy on the ears and easy to pronounce.

   A workafrolic is not a workaholic. The former is someone who is addicted to work. He may not be passionate about his job nor like want he does, and he could be doing it just for the money.

Are you a workaholic or a workafrolic?