open-armed hug
- noun
- She greeted her family with an open-armed hug after her long trip abroad.
Examples
-
Nothing compares to the feeling of an open-armed hug from a close friend.
-
After a long trip, I received an open-armed hug from my mom.
-
He offered an open-armed hug to anyone who needed comfort.
-
She greeted him with an open-armed hug.
-
She greeted her family with an open-armed hug after her long trip abroad.
-
Nothing compares to the feeling of an open-armed hug from a close friend.
-
After a long trip, I received an open-armed hug from my mom.
Synonyms
A tight warm hug
A very strong, tight hold with your arms around someone
A warm hug people give to show affection
Holding someone in your arms to show affection
A close hug made by putting your arms around someone to show affection
How Warm
Surface Forms
Morphology
open-armed + hug
The meaning 'a warm, enthusiastic embrace with arms outstretched' is directly compositional from 'open-armed' (arms open/extended) + 'hug' (an embrace); a learner who knows 'open', 'armed/arm', and 'hug' can readily infer the sense. The posture-based image is cross-linguistically common and follows a regular adjective+noun pattern, so it is immediately comprehensible to B1 learners.
Etymology
The noun open-armed hug comes from the simple image of someone standing with open arms ready to give a warm hug. Because the arms are wide and welcoming, the phrase now means 'a very warm embrace' or 'a sign of welcome'.