treadmill

[ tred-mil ]

noun

1. an apparatus for producing rotary motion by the weight of people or animals, treading on a succession of moving steps or a belt that forms a kind of continuous path, as around the periphery of a pair of horizontal cylinders.
2. an exercise machine that allows the user to walk or run in place, usually on a continuous moving belt.
3. any monotonous, wearisome routine in which there is little or no satisfactory progress.

treadmill

/ ˈtrɛdˌmɪl /

noun

1. Also calledtreadwheel (formerly) an apparatus used to produce rotation, in which the weight of men or animals climbing steps on or around the periphery of a cylinder or wheel caused it to turn
2. a dreary round or routine
3. an exercise machine that consists of a continuous moving belt on which to walk or jog

Word History and Origins

Origin of treadmill¹

First recorded in 1815–25; tread + mill ¹

Example Sentences

By then, the new treadmill is on Craigslist, and we’re on our second box of Valentine’s Day chocolates because we deserve to treat ourselves.

From Washington Post

Predictably, even as indoor Strava activities such as trainer rides and treadmill runs jumped in those countries, outdoor activities—at least those posted to Strava—plummeted by roughly 66 percent compared to normal times.

From Outside Online

It’s defined as the ratio of peak treadmill speed in the VO2 max test to 3,000-meter race speed.

From Outside Online

Led by first author Clarissa Whiting, a former Penn track star, the researchers recruited ten elite trail runners and had them run or walk on level ground and with the treadmill set to 30 degrees.

From Outside Online

It includes a wealth of videos led by fit and enthusiastic instructors who guide users through activities like yoga, treadmill running, and indoor rowing.

From Fortune

The fitness coaches at a globo-gym like Gold's would notice that a user was struggling with their squat or treadmill run.

From The Daily Beast

There are a few problems with outfitting an entire office with treadmill desks.

From The Daily Beast

Check in with HR regarding the possibility of getting a standing or treadmill desk to feel the burn all day long.

From The Daily Beast

At the gym, he quizzes the Christian jogging on the neighboring treadmill about the nature of subjective experience.

From The Daily Beast

Within decades, we could take ourselves off the dirty-fuel treadmill.

From The Daily Beast

Pretty well for "a cross between an Astley's chariot, a flying machine and a treadmill."

From Project Gutenberg

If you have made no place for yourself by that time in America you belong by a sort of divine decree to the treadmill.

From Project Gutenberg

Small wonder if the minister sometimes capitulates to things as they are and resigns himself to the ecclesiastical treadmill.

From Project Gutenberg

You struggled without advancing as we sometimes do in dreams, or though you stepped up and down, it was as in a treadmill.

From Project Gutenberg

And for all the effect their literary exercises has left on them they might just as well have been put on the treadmill.

From Project Gutenberg