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

That’s not hyperbole, and a lot of that has to do with the literal arms race that baseball is currently in, with every team finding more and more ways to weaponize pitches and extract the maximum amount of velocity out of an arm. —Grant Brisbee, New York Times, 21 May 2025

Speculation has swirled around whether Mohegan Sun wanted to keep up with the current WNBA arms race, with gaming, concerts and hospitality the primary businesses at the casino resort. —Kurt Badenhausen, Sportico.com, 12 May 2025

The nuclear arms race during the Cold War made civilian protection programs all the more urgent. —Jessi Jezewska Stevens, The Dial, 24 Apr. 2025

Such an agreement could also create daylight between China and Russia by foiling the former’s desire to see the United States saddled with an arms race in Europe. —A. Wess Mitchell, Foreign Affairs, 22 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1921, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for arms race

• abase
• airspace
• apace
• backspace
• biface
• birthplace
• blackface
• boldface
• bookcase
• braincase
• briefcase
• carcase