Word.ws English Dictionary

open door policy

open door policy is the alternative form of open-door policy.

Meaning of open-door policy

Noun

open-door policy (plural open-door policies)

  1. (idiomatic) A policy or usual practice, by a person in authority, of permitting subordinates or constituents to visit his or her office unannounced and at any reasonable time for the purpose of discussing matters of concern.
    • Take Continental Airlines's Robert F. Six's view of much touted open-door policies: “‘My door is always open—bring me your problems.’ This is guaranteed to turn on every whiner, lackey and neurotic on the property.”1986 August 24, Edwin McDowell, “What's New on the Corporate Bookshelf”, in New York Times, retrieved 15 Jan 2016
  2. (idiomatic) A governmental policy of encouraging immigration or of permitting increased access by foreigners for purposes of tourism, trade, investment, etc.
    • They also have tried to enlist support from the National Cattlemen's Association, on grounds this open-door policy could lead to easier entry for foreign beef.1984 June 18, Bill Keller, “Llama Owners' Lobby is Set to Fight Imports”, in New York Times, retrieved 15 Jan 2016

Forms of open door policy

pluralopen door policies

Questions about open door policy

What is open door policy the alternative form of?
Open door policy is the alternative form of open-door policy.

Words near open door policy in the dictionary

  1. open diapasons
  2. open differential
  3. open differentials
  4. open door
  5. open door policies
  6. open door policy
  7. open doors
  8. open e
  9. open ended straight draw
  10. open ended straight draws
  11. open enrollment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: open door policy (page history and authors); open-door policy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “open door policy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/open_door_policy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.