the.com/coworker
a stranger you'd never choose, performing friendship for forty hours a week.
means a person you work alongside, typically as an equal rather than a boss or subordinate.
from A transparent build: the prefix 'co-' (from Latin 'cum,' meaning 'together, with') bolted onto 'worker,' from Old English 'weorc.' The 'co-' is the same togetherness lurking in 'cooperate' and 'coexist' — fitting, since coexisting is largely what coworkers do. A modern compound that rose with the office itself, sometimes still hyphenated as 'co-worker' by those who like a little distance even in their spelling.
- shared time
- You see them more than your own family
- origin
- Term surged with the open-office boom
- proximity bond
- Closeness breeds attachment regardless of choice
- the irony
- Half your life, zero say in casting