whack-a-mole
/ˈwakəməʊl
/noun North American
1 (also trademark Whac-a-Mole) A game in an amusment arcade in which players use a mallet to hit toy moles, which appear at random, back into their holes: next time you are near a kiddie amusement park, go in and play a round of whack-a-mole...
- The game we chose was a variant of Whack-A-Mole, a classic carnival game.
- Meredith and I went to go play 'Whack-A-Mole' together, while Larkin went to get more tokens and Evan went to go talk to some guys from school.
- Not that I love hanging crepe but the next time you are near a kiddie amusement park, go in and play a round of Whack-a-Mole.
1.1Used with reference to a situation in which attempts to solve a problem are piecemeal or superficial, resulting only in temporary or minor improvement: the site’s security team has an ongoing battle against spammers, but it’s a game of whack-a-mole...
- We work directly together playing whack-a-mole with their administrative problems.
- The solution is to make either the browser or the application support the standards better, not to play whack-a-mole with each other trying to match features.
- If you do get into cover the shootouts that follow are pure digital whack-a-mole.