three-legged race

American  

noun

1. a race among a number of paired contestants, each contestant having one leg tied to the adjacent leg of their partner.

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three-legged race British  

noun

1. a race in which pairs of competitors run with their adjacent legs tied together

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Etymology

Origin of three-legged race

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Tim and Millie have been dating for a decade, from their hopeful 20s to their resigned 30s, and have become so mismatched in maturity that their efforts to stick together feel less like giddy Grecian handsprings and more like a three-legged race.

From Los Angeles Times

Knowing how closely divided we are, our atomized wisdom adds up vote by vote to a hobble for both parties — binds them in an endless three-legged race, rather than risk winner-take-all.

From Washington Post

The two men navigated the terrain in a way that some observers compared to a three-legged race.

From Los Angeles Times

Burns described Iran’s challenge as “a three-legged race” to obtain fissile material, to “weaponize” by placing such material into a device designed to cause a nuclear explosion, and to mate it to a delivery system such as a ballistic missile.

From Reuters

At the 1992 Town Picnic in Chernobyl, Ukraine, the three-legged race was won for the first time by a single person.

From Washington Post