carrot and stick

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See also: carrot-and-stick

English

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Etymology

From combining two ways to motivate a beast of burden, with the lure of a carrot placed just out of reach, and the threat of a stick behind.

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Noun

carrot and stick (plural carrots and sticks)

  1. (idiomatic) The simultaneous rewarding of good behavior and punishing of bad behavior.
    • 1876, Lord Blachford, “The Reality of Duty, as Illustrated by the Autobiography of Mr. John Stuart Mill”, in The Contemporary Review, page 523:
      It was this carrot and stick discipline to which Mr. John Mill was subjected, and which he accepted dutifully as flowing from that perfect wisdom of which up to this time his father had been the representative.
    • 1928, Joseph Montague with George Young, Freedom of the Seas, page 159:
      There was no similar carrot and stick for use against the French land armaments.
    • 2000, Anne O. Krueger with Chonira Aturupane, The WTO as an International Organization, page 225:
      The proposal to use the world trade order as a source of carrots and sticks for the pursuit of environmental objectives is based on three illusions.
    • 2008, Paul Lendvai with Ann Major, One Day that Shook the Communist World: The 1956 Hungarian Uprising and Its Legacy, page 227:
      the artful tactic of carrot and stick bore relatively plentiful fruit.

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