open season
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
[edit]open season (countable and uncountable, plural open seasons)
- (hunting, sometimes followed by on or for to designate the kind of animal hunted) A period of time during the calendar year when authorities within a jurisdiction permit the unrestricted hunting of one or more kinds of animal wildlife.
- 1912, Jack London, chapter 1, in The Scarlet Plague (fiction):
- "But there weren't many crabs in those days," the old man wandered on. "They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too."
- (figurative, often followed by on or for) A situation in which someone is endangered, blamed, harassed, or opposed in a sustained manner by a number of others; a situation in which something is endangered or otherwise opposed.
- 1919, William MacLeod Raine, “Prologue”, in A Man Four-Square (fiction):
- In the country of the Clantons there was always an open season on any one of his name.
- 1964 March 20, “Patents: Knocking Down the Pole”, in Time[1], →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 April 2016:
- The court thus overruled all the states' protective laws, except against outright fraud, and declared open season on any products not protected by patents.
- 2009, Tawny Weber, Coming on Strong (fiction), →ISBN, page 37:
- The paparazzi and gossip hounds have declared open season on celebrities.
- (idiomatic, often followed by on or for) A situation or period in which some activity is routinely carried on.
- 1921, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 15, in The Pride of Palomar (fiction), page 155:
- "My dear Miss Parker, this is the open season on terrible practical jokes."
- 1959 October 26, “Music: Curtains Up!”, in Time[2], →OCLC, archived from the original on 4 August 2014:
- The open season on culture in Manhattan used to begin with the first stroke of a Metropolitan Opera baton.
Antonyms
[edit]- (antonym(s) of “hunting”): close season, closed season
Translations
[edit]time period for hunting
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Further reading
[edit]- “open season”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
open season on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
