death spiral

American

noun

(in pair skating) a dramatic movement in which the man spins his partner around him in a gradually increasing radius while he spins in place, holding the extended arm of the woman, who revolves around him on one skate with the other leg stretched out and gradually lowers herself backward until she is just above the ice surface.

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 report lays out a death spiral for the economy in which AI displaces white-collar workers, who are then unemployed and have no money to spend, which causes economic ruin.

From Barron's

Michael Burry, the entrepreneur who gained fame for spotting the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, fanned fears on Monday as he flagged a possible "death spiral" for bitcoin.

From Barron's

A death spiral ultimately did it in: Unpaid suppliers cut shipments.

From The Wall Street Journal

However in May 2022, when TerraUSD depegged again and then succumbed to a death spiral, the foundation—which was essentially being directed by Kwon and Jump’s Kariya—transferred nearly 50,000 bitcoin to Jump without any written agreement regarding how they would be used, per the suit.

From The Wall Street Journal

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