Phrase guide

build a better mousetrap

verb · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

verb

Meaning 1

To create a new product, method, or idea that is better than an existing version of something already common or widely used.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: idiomatic

Examples

  • Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Of all the inventors to obtain patents, only a few have really built a better mousetrap.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

A shortening of build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Derived from the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods. (1855).