Adjective

(en adjective)

(not comparable) Which is not closed; accessible; unimpeded; as, an open gate.

* 1908, (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows) , Chapter 2

The open road, the dusty highway

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The attack of the MOOCs , passage=Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.}}

Not drawn together, closed, or contracted; extended; expanded.

an open''' hand; an '''open''' flower; an '''open prospect

* Dryden

Each, with open arms, embraced her chosen knight.

(not comparable) Actively conducting or prepared to conduct business.

(comparable) Receptive.

* Bible, Acts xix. 33

If Demetrius have a matter against any man, the law is open and there are deputies.

* Shakespeare

The service that I truly did his life, / Hath left me open to all injuries.

(not comparable) Public; as, an open letter, an open declaration.

* Shakespeare

His thefts are too open .

* Milton

That I may find him, and with secret gaze / Or open admiration him behold.

(not comparable) Candid, ingenuous, not subtle in character.

* Alexander Pope

with aspect open , shall erect his head

* Shakespeare

The Moor is of a free and open nature.

* Addison

The French are always open , familiar, and talkative.

(mathematics, logic, of a formula) Having a free variable.

(mathematics, topology, of a set) Which is part of a predefined collection of subsets of $X$, that defines a topological space on $X$.

In current use; mapped to part of memory.

(business) Not fulfilled.

Not settled or adjusted; not decided or determined; not closed or withdrawn from consideration.

an open question

to keep an offer or opportunity open

(music, stringed instruments) Without any fingers pressing the string against the fingerboard.

Not of a quality to prevent communication, as by closing waterways, blocking roads, etc.; hence, not frosty or inclement; mild; used of the weather or the climate.

an open winter

(Francis Bacon)

(phonetics) Uttered with a relatively wide opening of the articulating organs; said of vowels.

(phonetics) Uttered, as a consonant, with the oral passage simply narrowed without closure.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Able to be seen or known by everyone; open to general view, happening without concealment.

* 2011 , Sandra Laville, The Guardian , 18 Apr 2011:

Earlier this month Godwin had to make a public apology to the family of Daniel Morgan after the collapse of a £30m inquiry into his murder in 1987.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)

, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.}}

Pertaining to all the people as a whole (as opposed a private group); concerning the whole country, community etc.

* 2010 , Adam Vaughan, The Guardian , 16 Sep 2010:

A mere 3% of the more than 1,000 people interviewed said they actually knew what the conference was about. It seems safe to say public awareness of the Convention on Biological Awareness in Nagoya - and its goal of safeguarding wildlife - is close to non-existent.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17, author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot

, title=Money just makes the rich suffer, volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […]  The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.}}

Officially representing the community; carried out or funded by the state on behalf of the community.

* , chapter=22

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.}}

* 2004 , The Guardian , Leader, 18 Jun 2004:

But culture's total budget is a tiny proportion of all public spending; it is one of the government's most visible success stories.

Open to all members of a community; especially, provided by national or local authorities and supported by money from taxes.

* 2011 , David Smith, The Guardian , 10 May 2011:

Some are left for dead on rubbish tips, in refuge bags or at public toilets.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)

, volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}

(of a company) Traded publicly via a stock market.