Boreout
Etymology
A deliberate coinage modeled on "burnout," introduced by the Swiss business consultants Philippe Rothlin and Peter Werder in their 2007 book Diagnose Boreout. They argued that boredom, under-demand, and disinterest can be as damaging as overload. The inverted prefix — "bore" for "burn" — is the whole point: same wreckage, opposite cause.
noun · /BOR-owt/
A state of exhaustion and distress caused not by too much work but by chronic boredom, under-challenge, and meaninglessness on the job.
What it names
The overlooked counterpart to burnout — a name for the person who is quietly falling apart from having nothing worth doing, not from doing too much.
Example
Three months of watching the clock in a role with no real tasks left him with a textbook case of boreout.
Related idea
Burnout is collapse from too much; boreout is collapse from too little. Both end in the same depletion, which is why boreout is so often misdiagnosed.