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

College sports’ current arms race of money, along with unrestricted transfers, is threatening to shut out rising challengers like UConn football, with rich teams now dangling lucrative offers and raiding talent like never before. — U.s. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Hartford Courant, 24 Aug. 2026

For marketers, this is more than a product update in the AI arms race. — Gabriel Alin Zainescu, Forbes.com, 21 Aug. 2026

Treaties that curtailed the Cold War arms race were only possible because new technologies, like satellites and seismometers, allowed each side to verify the other’s compliance. — Billy Perrigo, Time, 17 Aug. 2026

There’s an ongoing arms race to protect identities and privacy in the age of facial recognition, biometric scanning and data collection. — Joshua Hong, Fortune, 14 Aug. 2026

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