Other forms: openings
An opening is the first stretch of something — the moves that begin a chess game, the paragraph that begins a book. The part where the shape of everything after it gets decided.
In chess an opening is a named and studied sequence, and players learn dozens by heart. Away from the board the word covers a good deal more: an opening in a wall is a gap, an opening at a firm is a job going, and the opening of an exhibition is the party on the first night. It works in front of a noun too — the opening scene, the opening batsman. Underneath every sense sits open, and each one is about something begun or made available.
1nounopeningThe first planned moves of a game, especially chess.
“He played a quiet opening and waited.”
2noungapA gap or hole.
“Light came through an opening in the roof.”
3nounjobA job that is available.
“There is an opening in the accounts team.”
4nounbeginningThe beginning of something.
“The opening of the film is almost silent.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Proto-Germanic
*upanōndz
Proto-West Germanic
*opanōndī
Old English
openiende
Middle English
openynge
English, today
opening
Built from
From Middle English openynge, openande, openand, from Old English openiende, from Proto-West Germanic opanōndī, from Proto-Germanic upanōndz, present participle of upanōną (“to open”), equivalent to open + -ing. Cognate with West Frisian iepenjend, Dutch openend, German öffnend, Swedish öppnande, Icelandic opnandi.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA