hamster wheel
Americannoun
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a cylindrical framework, usually within a cage, that is rotated by a hamster or other small animal running inside of it.
-
any situation that seems to be endlessly without goal or achievement.
Etymology
Origin of hamster wheel
First recorded in 1945–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The number is what gets you off the hamster wheel of anxiety every time you see another layoff headline.
From MarketWatch • May 15, 2026
If the desire to be released from this Hell reaches across the party line — if it’s affecting everyone, everywhere — is there any escape at all, any way off this hamster wheel?
From Salon • Dec. 21, 2025
All too often, the financial industry lures us onto the hamster wheel of chasing high returns, where we have to run so fast we never even notice what we pay to play.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 10, 2025
The plan was to return to California sometime in 2024 and hop back on the restaurant hamster wheel.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 29, 2025
When Danny was little, the Finnegan family he’d lived with had a guinea pig and after a year, it died while it was mid-run on its hamster wheel.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
