musical chairs
2
4.5
- noun
- Informal
:
cambio constante
- In the corporate world, the constant turnover of executives feels like a game of musical chairs every few months.
- musical chairs game
The new year brought with it a whole host of resignations and new appointments within what was now the musical chairs of the Russian government.
- The new year brought with it a whole host of resignations and new appointments within what was now the musical chairs of the Russian government.
Examples
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It's like musical chairs; we are always competing for the small pool of money, and there have to be winners and losers (bankruptcies, foreclosures, etc.) in this system.
Blog text (21) -
But there are other potential contenders to the CIA throne, and Petraeus's exit sets off a grand game of musical chairs in the Obama administration.
Blog text (30) -
It's a little like playing musical chairs, though, as it could soon be 'all change' and we'll have to jump to it all over again!
Blog text (8) -
Yes, secularist, but as European governments do, they were playing musical chairs about every two or three years.
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The new year brought with it a whole host of resignations and new appointments within what was now the musical chairs of the Russian government.
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The state lost a seat in the redistricting, so there was something akin to a musical chairs game.
Blog text (21) -
The thing is, the Yanks' offseason approach will be to wait until the music stops in this game of free agent musical chairs.
Blog text (17) -
Aug. 28, 2012? On a new television game show known as Oh Sit!, contestants must overcome a variety of obstacles (as well as each other) in an extreme version of the old children's game, musical chairs.
Blog text (25) -
The committee's frequent reshuffling of roles creates a sense of musical chairs among its members, as no one stays in the same position for long.
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With each new management policy, the staff experienced a musical chairs scenario, where responsibilities were swapped without any real change.
Antonyms
How Frequent
Surface Forms
Morphology
musical + chairs
Literally the phrase names the children’s game (music + chairs), so there is a visible link between the constituents and the notion of people repeatedly moving/competing for seats. However, the extended, figurative meaning — frequent reshuffling of roles or positions in an organization — depends on cultural/idiomatic knowledge of the game and its typical dynamics, so a B1 learner who only knows the words may not reliably infer the metaphorical sense.
Etymology
Musical chairs uses the picture of that game, with people moving around chairs while music plays and then scrambling for the few seats. So the phrase now describes a situation where people keep 'changing places' or jobs without any real change, like a round of 'musical chairs'.