Word of the day
Changing the rules after the game has started
idiom
The English word
move the goalposts
English never changes here, whatever language you are reading in.
When to use it
The image comes from football: mid-game, someone shifts the target so a shot that would have scored now misses. Use it to complain that a person in authority - a boss, a client, an institution - changed the requirements after the work had started, making success unfairly harder. Register is informal to neutral: fine in meetings and emails, out of place in a contract. It is almost always said with irritation, often about repeated changes.
Examples
Every time we hit the target, management moves the goalposts.
The client keeps moving the goalposts, so the project is never finished.
Goes with
keep moving the goalposts
move the goalposts halfway through a project
accuse someone of moving the goalposts
Check yourself
Complete the sentence with the English word above.
1. First they wanted five references, now they want ten - they keep moving the ___.
Show the answer
goalposts