Word.ws English Dictionary

carrots and sticks

carrots and sticks is the plural of carrot and stick.

Meaning of carrot and stick

Noun

carrot and stick (plural carrots and sticks)

  1. (idiomatic) The simultaneous rewarding of good behavior and punishing of bad behavior.
    • It was this carrot and stick discipline to which Mr. John Mill was subjected, and which he accepted dutifully as flowing from that perfect wisdom of which up to this time his father had been the representative.1876, Lord Blachford, “The Reality of Duty, as Illustrated by the Autobiography of Mr. John Stuart Mill”, in The Contemporary Review, page 523

Questions about carrots and sticks

What is carrots and sticks the plural of?
Carrots and sticks is the plural of carrot and stick.

Words near carrots and sticks in the dictionary

  1. carrotins
  2. carrotish
  3. carrotless
  4. carrotlike
  5. carrots
  6. carrots and sticks
  7. carrots-and-sticks
  8. carrottop
  9. carrottopped
  10. carrottops
  11. carrotty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: carrots and sticks (page history and authors); carrot and stick (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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