musical chairsnoun [ plural ]
uk/ˌmjuː.zɪ.kəl ˈtʃeəz/us/ˌmjuː.zɪ.kəl ˈtʃerz/a game in which children walk around a group of chairs while music plays. When the music stops they have to sit quickly on a chair, but because there is always one fewer chairs than children, the child that is left standing must leave the game:
figurative It's a game of musical chairs (= a situation in which people change jobs often) as editors move from one newspaper to another.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Children's games
- blind man's buff
- conker
- double Dutch
- follow-my-leader
- hangman
- hide-and-seek
- hoopla
- hopscotch
- life
- marble
- midget
- peekaboo
- piggy in the middle
- piggyback
- play
- pretend
- show-and-tell
- spitball
- tag
- trick-or-treating
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