Standard Lemma guide
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
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
noun
A situation where problems or tasks keep reappearing repeatedly.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Canada, US, countable, idiomatic, uncountable
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A strategy of addressing recurrent, unpredictable problems in a piecemeal, temporary way at their point of emergence.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Canada, US, countable, idiomatic, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From whack + a + mole (“a small, burrowing, insect-eating mammal of the family Talpidae”), from the arcade game Whac-A-Mole which involves quickly and repeatedly hitting the heads of mechanical moles with a mallet as they pop up from holes. The name of the arcade game was coined in 1977 when it was first sold in the United States; the original game released in Japan in 1975 was called モグラ退治 (Mogura Taiji, literally “Mole Extermination”).
Across languages
1 source translations are retained for this English entry.
