jump through hoops

verb

Etymology

Reminiscent of a circus animal performing tricks by jumping through hoops.

Definitions

  1. To put forth great effort to meet requirements, usually arbitrary, set by someone.

    • They really made the salesman jump through hoops before buying anything.
    • If learning is deemed valuable and important to the student, then the educator doesn't need a scripted curriculum or a fad initiative that has students and the educator jumping through hoops.
    • If a government says to citizens, “We will punish you for abstaining, unless you jump through the following legal hoops,” it is still coercing citizens.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for jump through hoops. 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