open seasons

Noun

open season (countable and uncountable, plural open seasons)

1. (sometimes) A period of time during the calendar year when authorities within a jurisdiction permit the unrestricted hunting of one or more kinds of animal wildlife.
   • "But there weren't many crabs in those days," the old man wandered on. "They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too."1912, Jack London, chapter 1, in The Scarlet Plague (fiction)
2. (figuratively, often) A situation in which someone is endangered, blamed, harassed, or opposed in a sustained manner by a number of others; a situation in which something is endangered or otherwise opposed.
   • In the country of the Clantons there was always an open season on any one of his name.1919, William MacLeod Raine, “Prologue”, in A Man Four-Square (fiction)
3. (idiomatic, often) A situation or period in which some activity is routinely carried on.
   • "My dear Miss Parker, this is the open season on terrible practical jokes."1921, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 15, in The Pride of Palomar (fiction), page 155