arms race
/ˈɑɹmz.ɹeɪs/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.63 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A competition for military supremacy between two powers, especially for the most weapons and the best military technology.
noun
Any similar competition that involves competing developments.
Example Sentences
- "Mr. Xi has made his intentions clear. He aims to achieve a “national rejuvenation” that would include displacing the United States as the dominant rule-setter in the region, controlling access to the South China Sea, and bringing Taiwan — a self-governing island that China sees as lost territory — under Beijing’s control. In response, many of China’s neighbors — and the United States — are turning to hard power, accelerating the most significant arms race in Asia since World War II."
- "The cost of parasitism has provoked an evolutionary arms race between parasite and host, in which hosts evolve defences to avoid becoming victimized and parasites counterattack by evolving strategies to outwit their hosts."
- "ChatGPT's sudden popularity has triggered an arms race among the world's leading tech companies and start-ups that are rushing to obtain the H100, which Huang describes as “the world's first computer [chip]^([sic]) designed for generative AI”—artificial intelligence systems that can quickly create humanlike text, images and content."
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɑɹmz.ɹeɪs/