arms race

noun

: a race between hostile nations to accumulate or develop weapons
broadly : an ever escalating race or competition

Examples of arms race in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Amazon, and others—are all in, and there’s now an arms race to dominate AI. Steve Case, Time, 1 Apr. 2025 Looking Ahead: The Race to Redefine Payments In the coming years, expect an arms race of sorts in the fintech world, as incumbents and startups alike pour resources into building or partnering for super apps. Zennon Kapron, Forbes.com, 28 Mar. 2025 One new approach has been to look in a systematic way for instances where evolution itself has produced new substances by tweaking existing compounds as part of the arms race in the microbial world. Bykai Kupferschmidt, science.org, 19 Mar. 2025 As tech giants compete in an AI arms race, restaurant companies have also been using the technology to stay ahead of rivals by improving their operations and saving money on labor. Amelia Lucas, CNBC, 18 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for arms race

Word History

First Known Use

1921, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of arms race was in 1921

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Cite this Entry

“Arms race.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arms%20race. Accessed 19 Apr. 2025.

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