(KOR.puh.rit an.uh.REKS.ee.uh)
n.
A business disorder, marked by an extreme fear of becoming inefficient that leads to excessive cost-cutting to the point of serious loss of business and sometimes bankruptcy.
Example Citation:
Some business bosses unfortunately have blinders on and feel that drastic cost-cutting alone is the answer when times are tough. They develop corporate anorexia. Those companies have become so skinny they'll be the last to get healthy again.
— Al Neuharth, "What will be top 10 headlines in 2002?," USA Today, January 4, 2002
Earliest Citation:
Combine the complexity of modern life, natural human insecurity and the current mood of "corporate anorexia — cutting staff out of fear of getting fat," and you create paranoia, says psychologist Dr. Richard Earle, director of the Canadian Institute of Stress in Mississauga.
— Louise Brown, "Office Paranoia," The Toronto Star, August 30, 1986
Notes:
My definition of today's phrase is a play on the following definition of anorexia nervosa: "An eating disorder, marked by an extreme fear of becoming overweight that leads to excessive dieting to the point of serious ill-health and sometimes death."
Related Words:
Categories:
New words. 2013.