Idiom
field day
Meaning
A great time or a great deal to do; a period of bustling activity.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The kids had a field day playing in the park all afternoon.”
“The hungry birds have a field day whenever we leave crumbs on the patio.”
“The local journalists had a field day when they discovered the mayor was hiding secret bank accounts.”
“The marketing team had a field day when their competitor accidentally posted an embarrassing video on social media.”
“After the heavy snowstorm, the local children had a field day building massive forts and having snowball fights in the street.”
“Given the abundance of unverified rumors circulating online, the gossip columnists had a field day dissecting every detail of the celebrity's sudden departure.”
Examples
simple
“The kids had a field day playing in the park all afternoon.”
“The hungry birds have a field day whenever we leave crumbs on the patio.”
contextual
“The local journalists had a field day when they discovered the mayor was hiding secret bank accounts.”
“The marketing team had a field day when their competitor accidentally posted an embarrassing video on social media.”
“After the heavy snowstorm, the local children had a field day building massive forts and having snowball fights in the street.”
complex
“Given the abundance of unverified rumors circulating online, the gossip columnists had a field day dissecting every detail of the celebrity's sudden departure.”
Origin
The idiom is thought to derive from the military use of the term for a parade day. Such an occasion was considered significantly less taxing for the soldiers than their customary drilling and intense physical exercise. When a regiment was granted a field day, the usual rigours of service were suspended in favour of a display, making the event a matter of relative ease and public performance.
Key words
Related idioms
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