opener

English

Etymology

From open +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

Noun

opener (plural openers)

  1. A person who opens something.
    • 1863, The British Controversialist: And Literary Magazine, page 122:
      Have you, like the opener of this debate, discovered, sapiently enough, that "the peace party, with Lord Aberdeen at their head, were the chief cause of the war"?
  2. A device that opens something; specifically a tin-opener/can-opener, or a bottle opener.
  3. (in combination) An establishment that opens.
    The late-night openers in the mall include two restaurants and a clothing store.
  4. (card games) The player who starts the betting.
  5. (card games, in the plural) Cards of sufficient value to enable a player to open the betting.
  6. (metalworking) A person employed to separate sheets of hot metal that become stuck together.
  7. (theater) The first act in a variety show or concert.
  8. (cricket) A batsman or bowler who normally plays in the first two positions of an innings.
  9. (colloquial) The first in a series of events, items etc.; the first remark or sentence of a conversation.
  10. (sports) The first game played in a competition.
    • 2011 January 15, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 4 - 3 Wolves”, in BBC‎[1]:
      The opener came from a Jarvis ball which struck Aleksandar Kolarov en route to a lively round of pinball between City players before it was poked in by Milijas.
    • 2011 September 24, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 67-3 Romania”, in BBC Sport‎[2]:
      England were on the scoreboard after only one minute, Wilkinson, who missed five penalties in his side's opener against the Pumas, knocking over a three-pointer from bang in front, despite boos from the crowd.
    • 2023 December 20, Sam Joseph, “Aaron Rodgers writes off this season as ‘lost year,’ but quarterback says he feels ‘I can play more years’ in NFL”, in CNN‎[3]:
      His debut was highly anticipated, but Rodgers only saw 94 seconds of game time as he suffered the significant injury in the Jets’ season opener against the Buffalo Bills when he was sacked by edge rusher Leonard Floyd, only four plays in.
  11. (sports) The first goal or point scored.
  12. (fishing) A period of time when it is legal to commercially fish.
  13. (baseball) A pitcher who specializes in getting the first outs of a game before being replaced, either by a long reliever or a pitcher who would normally start.
    • 2018 August 23, Jon Tayler, “How the Tampa Bay Rays Reinvented the Concept of Starting Pitching”, in Sports Illustrated‎[4]:
      The Rays debuted the opener—in which a reliever starts the game and throws anywhere from one to three innings, then gives way to a new pitcher, who will usually throw three to five as essentially a second starter—on May 19 against the Angels, using veteran righty Sergio Romo to pitch the first.

Hyponyms

of the sense “tool or machine used to open”

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

opener

  1. (phonetics) comparative form of open: more open
    • 1913 October, Edwin H. Tuttle, “Notes on Romanic Speech-History”, in The Modern Language Review, volume 8, number 4, page 484:
      The letter y is also used for the slightly opener non-fricative sound heard in English year.
    • 1982, J. C. Wells, Accents of English: Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles, page 512:
      Lower-middle-class speakers in New York showed a strong tendency to report themselves as using [æː] in the word pass, although as objectively observed they tended to use the pronunciation with [ɛːə]. And in the most formal style (word lists) they produced on average an opener quality than the upper-middle-class speakers – an example of Labov-hypercorrection.

Coordinate terms

Anagrams

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