"hamster wheel" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hamster wheels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hamster wheel (plural hamster wheels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "36 28 36",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A circular cage for a hamster or other small rodent, which rotates vertically as the animal runs at its base."
      ],
      "id": "en-hamster_wheel-en-noun-I9Uzy47L",
      "links": [
        [
          "circular",
          "circular"
        ],
        [
          "cage",
          "cage"
        ],
        [
          "rodent",
          "rodent"
        ],
        [
          "rotate",
          "rotate"
        ],
        [
          "vertical",
          "vertical"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "sense": "rotating cage",
          "word": "squirrel cage"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "36 28 36",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002 June 28, Michiko Kakutani, “Books of the Times”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-09-23",
          "text": "The overall mood of this volume is one of melancholy and loss, weary resignation to one's lot—trudging round and round on the rusty hamster wheel of life.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 May 6, Prof. Andrew McNaughton, “Time to challenge some sacred philosophies of recent years”, in Rail, page 32",
          "text": "Before the current pandemic, the rail industry appeared to be trapped on an ever-accelerating hamster wheel, trying to keep up with customer demand and political expectation on an essentially historic system itself exposed to greater impacts of climate change.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A monotonous, repetitive, unfulfilling activity, especially one in which no progress is achieved."
      ],
      "id": "en-hamster_wheel-en-noun-rkNOjQ7h",
      "links": [
        [
          "monotonous",
          "monotonous"
        ],
        [
          "repetitive",
          "repetitive"
        ],
        [
          "unfulfilling",
          "unfulfilling"
        ],
        [
          "progress",
          "progress"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively, by extension) A monotonous, repetitive, unfulfilling activity, especially one in which no progress is achieved."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "6 94",
          "sense": "a monotonous, repetitive, unfulfilling activity",
          "word": "rat race"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "hamster wheel"
  ],
  "word": "hamster wheel"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hamster wheels",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hamster wheeling",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hamster wheeled",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hamster wheeled",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hamster wheel (third-person singular simple present hamster wheels, present participle hamster wheeling, simple past and past participle hamster wheeled)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "36 28 36",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2015, Patti Grayson, Ghost Most Foul, page 111",
          "text": "I was shocked that I'd forgotten about the game that morning, but my mind had hamster-wheeled around for hours during the night, long after I should have been asleep.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Mary Hughes, M. J. Chase, Chicago's Chosen",
          "text": "But my brain was hamster-wheeling on that one hopefully-not-true-but-probably-was fact.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cycle fruitlessly."
      ],
      "id": "en-hamster_wheel-en-verb-~EZi7BW2",
      "links": [
        [
          "cycle",
          "cycle"
        ],
        [
          "fruitlessly",
          "fruitlessly"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, informal, idiomatic) To cycle fruitlessly."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "hamsterization"
        },
        {
          "word": "rationalization hamster"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "hamster wheel"
  ],
  "word": "hamster wheel"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hamster wheels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hamster wheel (plural hamster wheels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A circular cage for a hamster or other small rodent, which rotates vertically as the animal runs at its base."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "circular",
          "circular"
        ],
        [
          "cage",
          "cage"
        ],
        [
          "rodent",
          "rodent"
        ],
        [
          "rotate",
          "rotate"
        ],
        [
          "vertical",
          "vertical"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2002 June 28, Michiko Kakutani, “Books of the Times”, in New York Times, retrieved 2008-09-23",
          "text": "The overall mood of this volume is one of melancholy and loss, weary resignation to one's lot—trudging round and round on the rusty hamster wheel of life.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 May 6, Prof. Andrew McNaughton, “Time to challenge some sacred philosophies of recent years”, in Rail, page 32",
          "text": "Before the current pandemic, the rail industry appeared to be trapped on an ever-accelerating hamster wheel, trying to keep up with customer demand and political expectation on an essentially historic system itself exposed to greater impacts of climate change.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A monotonous, repetitive, unfulfilling activity, especially one in which no progress is achieved."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "monotonous",
          "monotonous"
        ],
        [
          "repetitive",
          "repetitive"
        ],
        [
          "unfulfilling",
          "unfulfilling"
        ],
        [
          "progress",
          "progress"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively, by extension) A monotonous, repetitive, unfulfilling activity, especially one in which no progress is achieved."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "rotating cage",
      "word": "squirrel cage"
    },
    {
      "sense": "a monotonous, repetitive, unfulfilling activity",
      "word": "rat race"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "hamster wheel"
  ],
  "word": "hamster wheel"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hamster wheels",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hamster wheeling",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hamster wheeled",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hamster wheeled",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "hamster wheel (third-person singular simple present hamster wheels, present participle hamster wheeling, simple past and past participle hamster wheeled)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "hamsterization"
    },
    {
      "word": "rationalization hamster"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2015, Patti Grayson, Ghost Most Foul, page 111",
          "text": "I was shocked that I'd forgotten about the game that morning, but my mind had hamster-wheeled around for hours during the night, long after I should have been asleep.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Mary Hughes, M. J. Chase, Chicago's Chosen",
          "text": "But my brain was hamster-wheeling on that one hopefully-not-true-but-probably-was fact.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To cycle fruitlessly."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "cycle",
          "cycle"
        ],
        [
          "fruitlessly",
          "fruitlessly"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, informal, idiomatic) To cycle fruitlessly."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "hamster wheel"
  ],
  "word": "hamster wheel"
}