treadmill

5 definitions • 3 examples

any type of repeated work that is boring and makes you feel tired and seems to have no positive effect and no end:

There were days when having kids seemed like an endless treadmill of feeding, washing, and nappy-changing.

an exercise machine that consists of a moving strip or two step-like parts on which you walk without moving forward

a wide wheel turned by the weight of people climbing on steps around its edge, used in the past to provide power for machines or, more usually, as a punishment for prisoners

a machine for exercising on which you run or walk on a strip that moves back, so that you must move at the same speed as the strip:

She works out on a treadmill.

A treadmill is also a boring, regularly repeated activity or experience:

My life has been a treadmill lately.