🗓️ Idiom: Hit a Ceiling (verb)
💬 Meaning
- To reach a limit in your career or progress.
- To stop moving forward because there are no more opportunities for growth.
🧠 Example Sentences
- After ten years in the same position, she felt she had hit a ceiling in her company.
- Many employees hit a ceiling when there are no higher roles available.
- He hit a ceiling in his current job and decided to look for new challenges elsewhere.
🏛️ Origin
The idiom likely comes from the image of a ceiling as the highest point you can reach in a room. In business, it began to be used in the mid-1900s to describe a situation where someone cannot progress further. The related phrase “glass ceiling” later became popular to describe hidden limits on promotion, especially for women in the workplace.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
After five years in the same role, I feel like I’ve _______ in this company.
Answer
hit a ceiling
2. Multiple choice:
What does “hit a ceiling” mean?
a) To break a record
b) To reach a limit in progress or growth
c) To start a new career
Answer
b) To reach a limit in progress or growth
3. Change the sentence using “hit a ceiling”:
She realised there were no more chances for promotion in her department.
Answer
She realised she had hit a ceiling in her department.
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