free-for-all

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹiːfəɹɔːl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹiːfɚɔːl/

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free-for-all (plural free-for-alls)

1. Chaos; a chaotic situation lacking rules or control.

   When the fire alarm went off, it was a free-for-all.

   • 1919, Burton Jesse Hendrick, The Age of Big Business‎:

     Competition was the order of the day: the industrial warfare of the sixties was a free-for-all.

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 134:

     […] this was a consequence of building Tubes by means of a competitive free-for-all. Each company wanted to expand its territory at the expense of the others.

2. (video games) Deathmatch, sometimes specifically one in which every player is pitted against all the others.

• law of the jungle

free-for-all (not comparable)

1. (of a fight, competition etc.) Open to anyone and with no or few rules.
   • 1913 October, Jack London, The Valley of the Moon, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:

     Men, as well as women, were springing in to the rope and pulling. No longer was it team against team, but all Oakland against all San Francisco, festooned with a free-for-all fight.

   • 1917, Zane Grey, Wildfire‎:

     Then Lucy told him about the great passion of her father—about the long, time-honored custom of free-for-all races, and the great races that had been run in the past; […]

   • 2022 October 27, Lauren Hirsch, quoting Elon Musk, “Elon Musk Reaches Out to Advertisers Ahead of Deadline for Twitter Deal”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     But, he added, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences!”

• knockdown-dragout

• “free-for-all”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.