the rat race

noun

: the unpleasant life of people who have jobs that require them to work very hard in order to compete with others for money, power, status, etc.

She is quitting the rat race to spend time with her family.

Examples of the rat race in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Leaving the rat race decades before traditional retirement age. — Bydoug Ashburn, Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 June 2026

Wearing sneakers for work not only makes the rat race a bit easier to run but can also spice up your business-causal wardrobe with a bit of fashion flavor. — Amber Rambharose, InStyle, 11 Mar. 2026

Quitting the rat race Like Chen, scores of young Chinese people have left big cities. — Albee Zhang, Fortune, 2 Mar. 2026

The Frank Loesser-scored musical satirizes the rat race of American corporate life, and that part of the show still holds up 65 years later. — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Feb. 2026

Rhymes for the rat race

• aerospace
• anatase
• anyplace
• commonplace
• cyberspace
• database
• diabase
• diastase
• dnase
• elastase
• fireplace
• hyperspace