A minister coined the word by fusing "work" with "alcoholic" to describe himself.
Wayne Oates, an American pastoral psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville, coined the word "workaholic" in 1968 by blending "work" with "alcoholic."1 Oates used the term to describe his own compulsive relationship with work, recognizing in himself an addictive pattern similar to what he had observed in substance dependency.
He published the concept in a 1971 book, Confessions of a Workaholic: The Facts about Work Addiction, defining a workaholic as "a person whose need for work has become so excessive that it creates noticeable disturbance or interference with his bodily health, personal happiness, and interpersonal relations, and with his smooth social functioning."2
The word entered popular usage rapidly. By the late 1970s, "workaholic" appeared regularly in mainstream media, self-help literature, and workplace commentary. The Japanese term karoshi, meaning death from overwork, entered medical and legal vocabulary in Japan around the same period, though the two concepts developed independently.3
Research has since distinguished between workaholism and high engagement. Wilmar Schaufeli and colleagues found that workaholics work compulsively and report lower well-being, while engaged workers work because they find the activity intrinsically rewarding and report higher well-being.4 Oates, a minister by training, had identified the condition not in a laboratory but in a church office, describing from personal experience a pattern that psychologists would spend the next fifty years trying to measure.