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View synonyms for open-and-shut

open-and-shut

[ oh-puhn-uhn-shuht ]

adjective

  1. immediately obvious upon consideration; easily decided:

    an open-and-shut case of murder.



open-and-shut

adjective

  1. easily decided or solved; obvious

    an open-and-shut case

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of open-and-shut1

An Americanism dating back to 1835–45
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Idioms and Phrases

Simple, straightforward, easily solved, as in With three eyewitnesses, the prosecutor said this case was open and shut . This term suggests that one has immediate access to the facts of a situation. [c. 1840]
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Example Sentences

And sometimes the open-and-shut of the steam hog had to go pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost.

I'm not suspecting anything, mind, but this has got to be an open-and-shut deal, or I don't go in.

Boys, it's a clean, open-and-shut job—with absolutely nothing to interfere.

But McNeill's could not afford to be shown up before thirty interested rivermen as running an open-and-shut brace-game.

But it had been all over in a breath, just an open-and-shut piece of battiness, same as fellers have when they jump a bridge.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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