musical chairs

English

Noun

musical chairs (uncountable)

1. (games) A children's game in which players circle a group of chairs. There is one chair fewer than the number of players. When someone who is not watching stops playing music, everybody sits down, and the player left without a chair is eliminated.
2. (figuratively) Any activity which results in repeated, pointless shuffling of people or objects.
   • 2012, Zadie Smith, NW, London: Penguin Books, published 2013, →ISBN, page 23:

     They were married though they needn't have married, and though both had sworn they never would be. It is hard to explain—in that game of musical chairs—why they should have stopped, finally, at each other.

   • 2022 October 7, Emma Goldberg, “The Job Market Has Been Like Musical Chairs. Will the Music Stop?”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     The job market last year and earlier in 2022 was like musical chairs, offering record opportunities for hopping from seat to seat. Now many feel that the music is about to stop.

Translations

game

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 音樂椅／音乐椅 (yīnyuèyǐ)

• Dutch: stoelendans (nl) m
• Finnish: tuolileikki (fi)
• French: chaises musicales (fr) f pl
• German: Reise nach Jerusalem f
• Icelandic: stóladans m
• Italian: gioco della sedia m
• Polish: gorące krzesła n pl (lit. 'hot chairs')
• Portuguese: dança das cadeiras f
• Russian: музыка́льные сту́лья m or pl (muzykálʹnyje stúlʹja)
• Spanish: juego de las sillas m, sillita musical, sillas musicales, (Argentina) baile de las sillas
• Swedish: hela havet stormar (sv)
• Thai: เก้าอี้ดนตรี (gâo-îi-don-dtrii)
• Turkish: sandalye kapmaca

figuratively: activity of shuffling people

• Dutch: stoelendans (nl) m
• Finnish: tuolileikki (fi)
• Swedish: hela havet stormar (sv)