Meanings
- neologismnot comparableIn a state of enjoyable unemployment.
Maybe you’re funemployed and you can go anytime?
2009 May 15, Bryce Longton, “Not another travel deal site”, in BlackBook, archived from the original on 16 Jul 20164 more examples
Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings.
2009 June 4, Kimi Yoshino, “For the ‘funemployed,’ unemployment is welcome”, in Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 07 May 2016And the so-called millennial generation's "weirdly upbeat" word "speaks volumes" about how this well-fed, well-organized age group is dealing with the worst downturn since the 1930s—the "young and funemployed" are taking the time to relax and "find themselves," but many also volunteer or self-educate.
2009 June 5, “The recession and ‘funemployment’”, in The Week, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2016A world without rigid temporal boundaries gave some a rare chance to relax and regroup after many years of busyness. Some took advantage of this freedom by becoming, as one respondent cleverly put it, “funemployed.”
2016, Benjamin H. Snyder, The Disrupted Workplace […] , Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 144Instead of being employed and lamenting over the loss of employment, money, and opportunity, we're now expected to be “funemployed”!
2022, Whitney Goodman, Toxic Positivity […] , Penguin, →ISBN, page 52
Origin
Blend of fun + unemployed.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with funemployed
Cite this entry
funemployed. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/funemployed
“funemployed.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/funemployed. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “funemployed,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/funemployed.
Source: funemployed on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.