OPEN BOOK Definition & Meaning

open book

noun

someone or something easily understood or interpreted; something very clear:
The child's face is an open book.

open book

noun

a person or thing without secrecy or concealment that can be easily known or interpreted

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of open book¹

First recorded in 1850–55

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Idioms and Phrases

Something or someone that can be readily examined or understood, as in His entire life is an open book . This metaphoric expression is often expanded to read someone like an open book , meaning “to discern someone's thoughts or feelings”; variations of this metaphor were used by Shakespeare: “Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,” ( Romeo and Juliet , 1:3) and “O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er” ( Troilus and Cressida , 4:5). [Mid-1800s] For an antonym, see closed book .

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Example Sentences

You should season both the pocket or "open book," as well as the outside of the chicken.

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She says the vulnerability heard in her new music comes from how her audience received her 2020 memoir, “Open Book.”

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In their letter to Wes Streeting, the families said they wanted an "open book review that leaves no stone unturned", and called for it to be carried out by Donna Ockenden, the midwife who chaired independent reviews into maternity services at trusts in Shropshire and Nottingham.

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Early on in the hearing, Hegseth said, “I sit before you, an open book,” but he responded to the assaults throughout the interrogation with evasion and open defiance.

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“This comeback is personal, it’s an apology to myself for putting up with everything I did not deserve,” the “Open Book” author wrote on Instagram at the time.

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

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