move the goalposts
UK informal disapprovingto change the rules while someone is trying to do something in order to make it more difficult for them:
We'd almost signed the contract when the other guys moved the goalposts and said they wanted more money.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Changing
- a new broom sweeps clean idiom
- about-turn
- alter
- alternate
- alternation
- bastardize
- convert
- move on
- move with the times idiom
- new
- new broom
- onto
- polymorphous
- reverse
- swing
- transform
- transitional
- transmogrify
- transmute
- turn (sb/sth) into sb/sth
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