free-for-all

UK /ˈfɹiːfəɹɔːl/ US /ˈfɹiːfɚɔːl/

noun 2adj 1

Collocations

ADJ.

competitive, developed, turned

VERB + FREE-FOR-ALL

become, becomes, cannot, ended, festooned, time-honored

FREE-FOR-ALL + NOUN

anything, company, fists, front, hellscape, shinomiya

PREP.

in, in, into, with, with

Definitions

noun

Chaos; a chaotic situation lacking rules or control.

When the fire alarm went off, it was a free-for-all.

Competition was the order of the day: the industrial warfare of the sixties was a free-for-all.

A deathmatch, sometimes specifically one in which every player is pitted against all the others.

adj

Of a fight, competition, etc., characterized by the absence or scarcity of formal rules or limitations.

Men, as well as women, were springing in to the rope and pulling. No longer was it team against team, but all Oakland against all San Francisco, festooned with a free-for-all fight.

Then Lucy told him about the great passion of her father—about the long, time-honored custom of free-for-all races, and the great races that had been run in the past; […]

Thesaurus

Synonyms

noun — a noisy fight in a crowd

brawl

Antonyms

Idioms & Phrases

Example Bank

When the fire alarm went off, it was a free-for-all.

Wiktionary

Competition was the order of the day: the industrial warfare of the sixties was a free-for-all.

Wiktionary

[…] this was a consequence of building Tubes by means of a competitive free-for-all. Each company wanted to expand its territory at the expense of the others.

Wiktionary

Men, as well as women, were springing in to the rope and pulling. No longer was it team against team, but all Oakland against all San Francisco, festooned with a free-for-all fight.

Wiktionary

Then Lucy told him about the great passion of her father—about the long, time-honored custom of free-for-all races, and the great races that had been run in the past; […]

Wiktionary

But, he added, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences!”

Wiktionary

Usage Notes

i Register

In some senses, free-for-all is marked as idiomatic. Watch for register when choosing this word.

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