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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

field day en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

Some postulate the idiomatic usage is derived from the "parade day" military use. A parade is much easier than the soldiers’ usual drilling and intense exercise.

Meanings

  1. A day for maneuvers and tactical exercises in the field (across the landscape).
    • This morning I got up, with great difficulty, at 6.30, and at 7.45 we started out for a Brigade Field Day. Did an attack from 10.30 to 2.30, but it wasn't a strenuous one for me as I was told to "become a casualty" soon after the 3000 yard assault began …. 1937, Siegfried Sassoon, Sherston's Progress, London: Faber, page 621 (in The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston ):
  2. (US) A school day for athletic events.
  3. A day of class taken away from school for a field trip.
  4. (idiomatic) A great time or a great deal to do; a period of bustling activity.
    • A family of frisky squirrels was having a field day amongst the towering obstacle course of foliage. 2014, Vance Munraff, Sounds Like Paradise: a Fugitive's Tale, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 62:
    • They went to the park and had a field day playing on the swings.
  5. (idiomatic) A great time or a great deal to do, at somebody else's expense.
    • The reporters will have a field day with a comment like that.
    • What a field day for the heat (Ooo-ooo-ooo) / A thousand people in the street (Ooo-ooo-ooo) / Singing songs and a-carryin' signs (Ooo-ooo-ooo) / Mostly say "Hooray for our side" (Ooo-ooo-ooo) 1966 December, Stephen Stills, “For What It's Worth”performed by Buffalo Springfield:
    • The Russian foreign ministry had a field day denouncing what it called western propaganda as a high-level lie. 2022 November 15, Patrick Wintour, “Sergei Lavrov, a fixture of Russian diplomacy facing his toughest test in Ukraine”, in The Guardian:
    • The reporters were having a field day with our saga and the courtroom filled with spectators. 2012, Gary Rosen, Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 140:
    • I thought I'd been so thorough, so efficient, and so cost conscious, but look where I was now. The devil was having a field day with my head. 2012, Claudia Parker, Becoming a Mother, While Losing My Own, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 158:
    • It had become a legal nightmare. All parties had retained attorneys; the community and press were having a field day. 2009, Julie Jurgens-Shimek, Autism Is a Four Letter Word: Love, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 32:
    • The scandal was a field day for the press.
  6. (Navy, US, qualifier:US Coast Guard and US Marine Corps, specifically) A day on which there is top-to-bottom all-hands cleaning.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
field days Number=Plur lexicographic

Coordinates

field night

Relateds

open field

Synonyms

sports day

Translations (11)

sv friluftsdag (school day for athletic events) · sv idrottsdag (school day for athletic events) · ko 운동회 (school day for athletic events) · fr journée sportive (school day for athletic events) · ja 体育祭 (school day for athletic events) · pl używanie (school day for athletic events) · ko 체육대회 (school day for athletic events) · ja 運動会 (school day for athletic events) · ko 체육제전 (school day for athletic events) · pl dzień sportu (school day for athletic events) · hu sportnap (school day for athletic events)