reinventing the wheel

The phrase "reinventing the wheel" advises against duplicating efforts on solutions that already exist and are effective.

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Definition

(informal)To waste time and effort creating something that already exists and works well.

By developing their own software from scratch, they were just reinventing the wheel.

(informal)To duplicate an established method or process unnecessarily.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, they decided to use the existing project management system.

Terms that have similar or relatively close meanings to "reinventing the wheel":