What does "karoshi" mean?

Death, such as from heart attack or stroke, brought on by overwork or job-related stress.

What is a synonym for "karoshi"?

Common synonyms include: guolaosi, guolaosi, gwarosa.

//kəˈɹəʊʃi// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Death, such as from heart attack or stroke, brought on by overwork or job-related stress. uncountable
"For a while he began to speak Japanese, rather slangy, never having seemed to learn it — karoshi for death from overwork, yakitaori-ya for eatery, and gaijin for clumsy foreigner."

"Tom's father died from karoshi five years ago."

Borrowed from Japanese 過労死 (karōshi), from 過労 (karō, “overwork”) + 死 (shi, “death”). Doublet of guolaosi and gwarosa.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.