Word.ws English Dictionary

hamster-wheel

hamster-wheel is the alternative form of hamster wheel.

Meaning of hamster wheel

Verb

hamster wheel (third-person singular simple present hamster wheels, present participle hamster wheeling, simple past and past participle hamster wheeled)

  1. (idiomatic, informal, intransitive) To cycle fruitlessly.
    • 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.2015, Patti Grayson, Ghost Most Foul, page 111

See all 3 meanings of hamster wheel

Forms of hamster-wheel

third-person singular presenthamster-wheels
present participlehamster-wheeling
past participlehamster-wheeled
pasthamster-wheeled

Questions about hamster-wheel

What is hamster-wheel the alternative form of?
Hamster-wheel is the alternative form of hamster wheel.

Words near hamster-wheel in the dictionary

  1. hamster style
  2. hamster wheel
  3. hamster wheeled
  4. hamster wheeling
  5. hamster wheels
  6. hamster-wheel
  7. hamster-wheeled
  8. hamster-wheeling
  9. hamster-wheels
  10. hamstered
  11. hamsterer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hamster-wheel (page history and authors); hamster wheel (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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Cite this entry: “hamster-wheel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hamster-wheel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.