Meanings
alternative playbour
- uncountableA hybrid form of play and labour, specifically in the games industry.
1 more example
The fun, pleasurable aspect of playbor troubles scholars because it seems to suggest that playborers are not exploited; exploitation is supposed to be immiserating, not fun. Furthermore, the characterization of playbor as exploitative might easily be read as something of an insult to the exploitation of real (material) labor, which is in fact immiserating.
2018 January 16, Greg Goldberg, Antisocial Media: Anxious Labor in the Digital Economy, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 51
Origin
Blend of play + labor, coined by Julian Kücklich Julian Kücklich in 2005.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
playbor. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/playbor
“playbor.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/playbor. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “playbor,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/playbor.
Source: playbor on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.