Meaning
A legal case - and by extension any matter or question - so clear and simple that it can be decided without argument. Merriam-Webster gives the underlying adjective two senses, 'perfectly simple: obvious' and 'easily settled'. It is usually said of prosecutions where the evidence is overwhelming, and just as often used ironically of matters later proved to be anything but simple. Informal and almost always attributive before case. Frequently deployed ironically, since supposedly open-and-shut cases are a staple of courtroom drama. Compare cut and dried, already catalogued here. Regional use: Originally American English; now general English.
Origin
An Americanism. The adjective open-and-shut is a native English compound, and the references agree to the year: the OED's earliest evidence is from 1841, in the Daily Picayune of New Orleans, and Merriam-Webster independently dates the first known use to 1841 in the 'perfectly simple: obvious' sense. The collocation open-and-shut case then became the standard idiom in American courtrooms and crime reporting. Stories that derive it from a trial needing only a lawyer's opening and closing arguments, or from some simple open-and-shut device, are unsourced folk explanations: the dictionaries treat it simply as a compound meaning obvious, and none ties it to a particular trial or mechanism.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- an open-and-shut matter
- an open-and-shut question
Usage Examples
- With his fingerprints on the weapon and two eyewitnesses, the prosecutor expected an open-and-shut case.
- Everyone assumed the election would be an open-and-shut case for the incumbent until the scandal broke.
- If the contract is signed and notarized, proving ownership should be an open-and-shut case.