opener
/ˈəʊp(ə)nə
/noun
1 [usually with modifier] A device for opening something, especially a container: a tin opener a letter opener...
- The Northern Star Literary Award, a hand-crafted pen, pencil and letter opener in a box of North Coast red cedar, will also be awarded for best entry overall.
- Airports have brought in increasingly stringent security checks, and are confiscating everything from nail files and bottle openers to knitting needles and knives.
- My family has a picnic kit which includes knife, bottle opener, ‘cool bag’ and plastic plates and cups to make meals on beaches that bit nicer!
2 informal The first in a series of events, games, or actions: Denver stuffed Buffalo 22-7 in the season opener...
- Johnson has proven that his victory at the season opener was no fluke.
- After a busy summer, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens are getting ready for their season opener, which, incidentally, is also a world premiere.
- Making the All-Star team, standing on the mound for the fifth game of the playoffs, starting the season opener this year - it's all unbelievable.
2.1The first goal in a match: Bannister equalized after Armstrong’s opener for Palace...
- The Eagles returned from the home of the league leaders with a well-earned point after a Julian Gray goal cancelled out an opener by Pompey's former England international Paul Merson.
- The Pikes' version notched two goals, his opener a mazy run of which his brother would have been proud to claim as his own.
- However, play was a ding-dong battle with neither team able to make tactical offensive ploys in their quest for the goal opener.
2.2A remark used as an excuse to initiate a conversation: we blurted out the obvious opener...
- My store of conversational openers seems thoroughly inadequate to the task.
- Sitting down beside him, Brenna wracked her brain for a conversation opener.
- My response to his question was sort of a conversation opener and an ender.
2.3 Cricket A batsman who opens the batting.Which isn't to say he is any less potent; his ability to dismiss top-class batsmen and high-class openers is unquestionable....
- No matter what their decisions, Lancashire must recruit at least one top-class batsman, preferably an opener, and possibly two.
- Following the fall of the openers, the batsmen dropped at an alarming rate.
2.4 Bridge The player who makes the first bid in the auction.
Phrases
for openers