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revolving door

revolving door

5 4.6
A situation in a workplace where people keep leaving and being replaced
  • noun
  • /rɪˈvɑlvɪŋ dɔr/
translation icon : rotación de personal
  • It's just one big club revolving door of personnel.

It's just one big club revolving door of personnel.

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Examples

  • One may also notice that among some politicians, there is a revolving door between the two parties or between serving the state and serving corporations.

    Blog text (3)
  • The NFL is a revolving door of coaches.

    Blog text (5)
  • There was the revolving door position that they kept putting women in.

    Academic text (2006)
  • A revolving-door prime ministry with a new prime minister every year or so.

    Blog text (22)
  • Instead, community drug treatment is typically episodic, providing at best a revolving door of services through which the client can enter repeatedly.

    Academic text (2009)
  • Reports have suggested that Hostess has had a revolving door of CEOs marching in over the past decade.

    Blog text (13)
  • How can the Prime Minister explain the revolving door between Tory Party HQ and the Swiss branch of HSBC?

  • In the near term, between the adoption of the constitution in March 1956 and the military takeover of October 1958, Pakistan had four prime ministers in a revolving-door pattern that endures to this day.

    Academic text (2004)
  • Jennifer Ferrara, writing in The Ecologist, identifies a "revolving door" that exists between key figures in the U.S. FDA and employees at Monsanto as at least partly responsible for this laissez-faire form of regulation.

    Academic text (2000)
  • Many companies experience a revolving door of employees who frequently leave and are replaced by new hires.

Synonyms

turnover
vsrevolving door
  • Specialized
40 4.2

The rate at which employees leave and are replaced in a company

relates to the measured rate rather than describing the recurring replacement
turnover rate
vsrevolving door
  • Specialized
5 4.0

How quickly workers leave a company and new workers replace them

expresses the repeated replacement situation rather than a statistical measure
employee turnover
vsrevolving door
1 3.3

How quickly workers leave a company and new ones replace them

focuses on the ongoing replacement situation rather than the numeric rate
revolving door syndrome
vsrevolving door
7.6

Staff often leave and new staff replace them in a workplace

is the general term for that recurring replacement situation

Antonyms

363 3.1

Being steady and not likely to change

52 4.7

A situation where things stay the same or keep happening without big changes

How Stable

longevity
9 5.4
revolving door
5 4.6
turnover
  • Specialized
40 4.2

Surface Forms

Morphology

revolve + door

The phrase is a metaphorical extension of the literal object (a door that revolves, allowing continuous entry and exit), so a learner who knows 'revolve' and 'door' can plausibly infer a sense of repeated coming and going. However, mapping that physical image onto the specific institutional meaning of frequent staff turnover or replacement requires a metaphorical leap and some pragmatic knowledge, making it only partially predictable for a B1 learner.

Etymology

Revolving door is also used as a picture: imagine a busy revolving door that never stops turning and people keep stepping through, so when a place has staff always coming and going it is called a 'revolving door'.