build a better mousetrap
verbEtymology
A shortening of build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Derived from the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods. (1855).
Definitions
To create a new product, method, or idea that is better than an existing version of…
To create a new product, method, or idea that is better than an existing version of something already common or widely used.
- Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Of all the inventors to obtain patents, only a few have really built a better mousetrap.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for build a better mousetrap. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA