Idiom idiom
mission creep
Meaning
Gradual unplanned expansion of the objectives, scope, and/or cost of a project, especially a military mission.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The project is suffering from mission creep.”
“We started with a simple website, but constant new requests have led to serious mission creep.”
“The committee warned that without strict oversight, the initiative would inevitably succumb to mission creep, eventually exhausting the entire budget.”
Anchors to
Last updated August 10, 2026