whack-a-mole

Meanings:

1.
General Englishneutral
- An arcade game in which players hit mechanical figures that repeatedly pop up from holes.
2.
General EnglishNorth AmericaUnited Kingdominformal
- A situation in which problems or unwanted events repeatedly reappear after being temporarily dealt with, giving the impression of endless, repetitive effort.
- Any task or process that involves repeatedly addressing short‑term symptoms rather than solving an underlying cause.
3.
General Englishinformalpejorative
- A person who is erratic, disruptive, or repeatedly appears in problematic ways; used derogatorily to describe someone perceived as mentally unstable or persistently troublesome.

Examples:

EN: Let me at that whack-a-mole.
ES: Dejame en ese whack-a-mole.
EN: - It's a big game of whack-a-mole.
ES: - Todo un juego de...
EN: They can only pop up in the areas we choose, like that old earth game of whack-a-mole.
ES: Que sólo puedan aparecer en las áreas que elegimos, como el juego de la vieja tierra de golpe a ciegas.
EN: I'm here because Sarah Connor is a deluded, dangerous whack-a-mole who killed a man because she believes he'll invent a computer system that declares war on the world.
ES: Estoy aquí porque Sarah Connor es una blanda, peligrosa, de tipo Whack-A-Mole que mató a un hombre porque creía que en el futuro, inventaría un sistema computarizado que declarará la guerra al mundo.
EN: She was probably just a nut job, some kind of whack-a-mole.
ES: Seguramente era una loca.
EN: - Oh, whack-a-mole.
ES: -Oh, el caza-topos(NdT:
EN: John-John played whack-a-mole with a senior citizen.
ES: John-John hizo guacamole con un jubilado.
EN: We're playing whack-a-mole.
ES: Esto es un no parar.
EN: You're like a human whack-a-mole.
ES: Eres como un Aplasta-Al-Topo humano.
EN: How's whack-a-mole?
ES: ¿Encontraste al espía?
EN: Well, we liken early sobriety to a whack-a-mole game.
ES: Comparamos un desenganche prematuro con el juego de golpear los topos.
EN: It's just like playing whack-a-mole.
ES: Es igual que jugar al Golpea al Topo.
EN: I want to play whack-a-mole.
ES: - ¿Por favor?
EN: We've been playing whack-a-mole with these guys since Ward first picked me out of my van.
ES: Hemos estado luchando contra estos tipos desde que Ward me sacó de mi furgoneta.
EN: Trying to get an answer out of you about your past is like playing whack-a-mole.
ES: Tratar de obtener una respuesta de ti acerca de tu pasado es como jugar a golpear al topo.

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