cattle prod
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: cattleprod and cattle-prod
Alternative forms
Noun
cattle prod (plural cattle prods)
- A stick designed to goad cows, steers, and similar animals in order to prompt them to move in a desired direction, now usually electrified to administer a stimulating shock to the animal.
- (figuratively) Something used to goad or push someone to act.
- 2023 July 10, James Poniewozik, “The Twitter Watch Party Is Over”, in The New York Times:
- Social media is only as virtuous as the people using it. With Donald J. Trump in office, using Twitter as a cattle prod to shock the country to attention multiple times a day — often over cultural topics like N.F.L. protests or “Roseanne” — there was a sense that every day on the site was a battle.
Synonyms
Translations
Verb
cattle prod (third-person singular simple present cattle prods, present participle cattle prodding, simple past and past participle cattle prodded)
- (transitive, figuratively) To goad or push someone to act.
- (They cattle prodded people trying to get them to move, but to no avail.)
- (The website locks streams at highest resolution to cattle prod users to pay higher bandwidth fees.)
References
- “cattle prod”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
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