SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
positional treadmill
noun phrase
A metaphor for competing to maintain relative standing, so greater effort brings little improvement in one's position.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Competition to maintain rank
No close substitute is listed for this sense. The expressions below help explain the idea.
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topThese are related descriptions of the metaphor, not exact technical replacements. The defining feature is escalating effort without a corresponding improvement in relative position; hedonic adaptation is a different mechanism.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See positional treadmill in use
The essay's positional treadmill appears when each neighbor buys more simply to keep pace.
A positional treadmill develops when every stall keeps purchasing more elaborate badges merely to preserve its place in the prestige ranking.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license