build a better mousetrap

短语

发音

AU

词形变化

building a better mousetrap builds a better mousetrap 三单 builds a better mousetrap built a better mousetrap building a better mousetrap 现在分词 built a better mousetrap 过去式 built a better mousetrap 过去分词

释义与例句

v.
  1. 1.

    To create a new product, method, or idea that is better than an existing version of something already common or widely used.

    习语

    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.

词源

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).

来源：wiktionary