roller coaster
1 Americannoun
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a small gravity railroad, especially in an amusement park, having a train with open cars that moves along a high, sharply winding trestle built with steep inclines that produce sudden, speedy plunges for thrill-seeking passengers.
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a car or train of cars for such a railroad.
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any phenomenon, period, or experience of persistent or violent ups and downs, as one fluctuating between prosperity and recession or elation and despair.
verb (used without object)
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to go up and down like a roller coaster; rise and fall.
a narrow road roller-coastering around the mountain; a light boat roller-coastering over the waves.
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to experience a period of prosperity, happiness, security, or the like, followed by a contrasting period of economic depression, despair, or the like.
The economy was roller-coastering throughout most of the decade.
adjective
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of, relating to, or characteristic of a roller coaster.
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resembling the progress of a ride on a roller coaster in sudden extreme changeableness.
noun
Etymology
Origin of roller coaster1
First recorded in 1885–90
Origin of roller-coaster2
First recorded in 1960–65
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.
“If I make a big, hot roller coaster of a movie and remain totally honest in what I’m trying to explore and think about inside it, will people respond? That was my question,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times
He reveals, “I stopped watching dailies on that because Zach is so surprising that I just wanted to go to the first test screening and experience the movie. And it was like a roller coaster.”
From Los Angeles Times
Despite the underlying momentum, sharp swings in trade policy over the course of the year sent the economic data on a roller coaster ride.
From BBC
He added: "It's easy to get up on that roller coaster and get carried away, but it will come back".
From BBC
Homemade electricity would help get it off the price roller coaster caused by tense geopolitics.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
