field day
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.
“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.”
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.
- 01
a cold day in July
The time of occurrence of an event that will never happen.
- 02
a day late and a dollar short
Too late and too feeble to achieve the desired effect.
- 03
a year and a day
A long time.
- 04
all one's born days
One's whole life.
- 05
as the day is long
Unceasingly; very; thoroughly; to a very high degree.
- 06
bad hair day
A day when things seem to be unmanageable or go wrong.
- 07
bad old days
The past, seen as a time when things were worse.
- 08
banyan day
In British naval tradition, a day of the week when galley kitchens served no meat on board ship.
Last updated August 10, 2026