arms race

American

noun

competition between countries to achieve superiority in quantity and quality of military arms.

arms race British

noun

the continuing competitive attempt by two or more nations each to have available to it more and more powerful weapons than the other(s)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of arms race

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The narrative suggested an arms race was under way, and capital flowed freely into the Magnificent Seven poster stocks with the assumption that profits would await those with the financial power to stay ahead.

From MarketWatch

If the AI arms race reaches orbit, any company that can reliably put things in space, such as Rocket Lab, will benefit.

From Barron's

Hyperscalers are spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to gain an advantage in the AI arms race External link.

From Barron's

He won’t talk about the growing concerns of a renewed arms race, the widening education gap or how many people now must be 40 before they can afford their own home.

From Salon

Tech CEOs are locked in an artificial intelligence "arms race" that risks wiping out humanity, top computer science researcher Stuart Russell told AFP on Tuesday, calling for governments to pull the brakes.

From Barron's

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023