Definition

The person or company paying you money, which somehow grants them the magical power to call you at 11 PM on a Friday. In professional services, they're technically your customer, but let's be honest—they think they own you. Whether you're a lawyer, consultant, or creative, the client-provider relationship is a delicate dance between meeting expectations and managing unrealistic demands.

Example Usage

The client wants the entire website redesigned by Monday, even though they took three weeks to approve the logo.

Source: Common industry terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

bleester

Someone with a supernatural ability to arrive exactly after all the hard work is finished, conveniently dodging effort while maintaining plausible deniability. The workplace phantom who materializes only when the moving truck is packed, the project is complete, or the cleaning is done.

💼 Corporate / Business
Intermediate

convene

The formal way of saying "let's all get together for a meeting," typically used when someone wants to sound official about assembling a group. It's what happens when calling everyone into a conference room needs gravitas, usually for government bodies, boards, or people who love Robert's Rules of Order. Basically, it's corporate speak for "everyone get in here."

💼 Corporate / Business
Advanced

cathedral

A large, complex software or business project built through centralized, hierarchical planning over long periods. Contrasts with 'bazaar' development, which is more chaotic but often more effective.

💼 Corporate / Business
Beginner

subcontract

The art of delegating work you've been contracted to do to someone else, while maintaining plausible involvement and a comfortable margin. It's essentially corporate inception: contracts within contracts. Companies use this to claim expertise in everything while actually doing very little themselves.

💼 Corporate / Business
Intermediate

Socialize

To share an idea informally before making it official, essentially pre-selling your proposal through hallway conversations and coffee chats. Politics disguised as collaboration.

💼 Corporate / Business
Intermediate

Waterfall

A project management methodology where you plan everything upfront, follow the plan rigidly, and then act surprised when nothing works at the end. Named after a waterfall because once you go over the edge, there's no going back -- only screaming.

💼 Corporate / Business

Translate This Term

See “client” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on XShare on FacebookShare on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Intermediate

lossless

A compression method that preserves every single bit of original data, like photocopying without any degradation, which ...