virtuous circle

noun

variants or virtuous cycle

: a chain of events in which one desirable occurrence leads to another which further promotes the first occurrence and so on resulting in a continuous process of improvement

But the economy is depressed, in large part, because of the housing bust, which immediately suggests the possibility of a virtuous circle: an improving economy leads to a surge in home purchases, which leads to more construction, which strengthens the economy further, and so on.

—Paul Krugman

Examples of virtuous circle in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Starmer has to create a virtuous circle in which a radical renewal of the United Kingdom’s sclerotic democracy feeds into and is in turn fed by an energetic revival of its flaccid economy. —Fintan O’Toole, Foreign Affairs, 5 July 2024

In challenge competitions, the networks that were measurably more effective would prevail, which would then put them in a position to attract more people, funds, and connections, creating a virtuous circle. —Anne-Marie Slaughter, Foreign Affairs, 16 Feb. 2021

That virtuous circle depends on freedoms in a political context under direct threat from the populist authoritarianism movement led by Donald Trump. —Michael S. Roth, TIME, 23 Apr. 2024

Whether by causation, correlation or coincidence, there does appear to some sort of virtuous circle, with strong soft power helping to boost trade and investment while success in trade and investment enhances soft power. —Courtney Fingar, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1903, in the meaning defined above