Treadmill
Definition, Meaning & Examples
Pronunciation /ˈtɹɛd.mɪl/ · Part of speech noun
Quick meaning: Treadmill is a noun meaning A piece of indoor sporting equipment used to allow for the motions of running or walking while staying in one place.
Meaning
A piece of indoor sporting equipment used to allow for the motions of running or walking while staying in one place.
More Meanings
- A mill worked by horses, dogs, etc., treading an endless belt.
- (intransitive) To exercise on a treadmill.
- (figurative) A process or situation in which continued effort leads to or is required for remaining at a particular state or level without moving ahead.
- (figuratively, by extension, intransitive) To keep busy, for example, with work or with other tasks, without being able to get ahead or make progress towards long-term goals.
- (historical) A mill worked by persons treading upon steps on the periphery of a wide wheel having a horizontal axis. It was used principally as a means of prison discipline.
Example Sentences
Their paternal house of Drummington, Foker could very seldom be got to visit. He swore he had rather go on the treadmill than stay there.
Elizabeth Schor (1999) has long argued that this status treadmill, even if not universal, has worked to “ratchet” global conceptualizations of need and desire upward over time.
Back we were in the rat race, treadmilling sixty hours a week and sleeping forty, our sex life was like that of most busy cohabiters I suppose: fun, frolicky, and squeezed in haphazardly when we had a minute—or thirty.
1 As a result, people can easily find themselves alternating between various treadmills: the hedonic treadmill of pursuing happiness, the status treadmill requiring conspicuous consumption, and the treadmill of work undertaken to finance one's activity on the other two treadmills.
Word Forms
- treadmills
- treadmilling
- treadmilled
Synonyms for treadmill
Depending on context, synonyms include mill, stepper, treadwheel.
Related Words
Related dictionary entries include treadwheel, carousel, walkway, conveyor, sport, logjam.
Related Dictionary Tools
Sources & Attribution
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.