to open doors
53
3.2
- phrasal verb
:
abrir puertas (a)
- Networking at conferences can open doors to collaborations and partnerships.
- open new doors
- open the door to opportunities
- open many doors
It's the thing that opens doors and maintains relationships.
- It's the thing that opens doors and maintains relationships.
- Other people can help you then open some doors and create opportunities.
- And people really feel like that's a way of opening a door, creating familiarity.
- So Grove won this huge case, which opened the doors to everything.
- I'm telling you it will or it can open the doors to more opportunities.
- And that opened some doors of inquiry.
- And it's given me strength and it's opened a lot of doors for me and it's given it.
- So locations you can get for free, they just open their doors to you there.
- Well, I think flipping is great because you now open up the door for more deals, right?
- He's, he's, he's pioneered commercial space travel, opens the doors for so many things.
- And so Aldous Huxley would say we opened the doors of perception.
- So NBC News is now telling us Pelosi opened the door.
- So once we open the door, there is no way back because we want to be free.
- With campaign support, we will say yes to opening Harvard's front door wider to more and new audiences.
- So once they open that door, it stays open, right?
Examples
-
A supportive principal can open the doors for program development and expansion.
Academic text (1993) -
Progress in missile defense, the administration hopes, will open the door to broader cooperation and burden sharing within the GCC.
Academic text (2015) -
Other people can help you then open some doors and create opportunities.
-
I think that would open the doors to a degree of double standards.
-
I'm telling you it will or it can open the doors to more opportunities.
-
Your programming background in math can open doors to exciting and high paying jobs.
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Meditation is a skill that opens doors that you might not otherwise know exist.
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In a community where opportunities and resources are limited, school libraries are important tools to open doors and empower potential.
Academic text (2015) -
The film's successful box office opened the door for six more sequels, and a surge of merchandising followed.
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Now Cambodia has opened its doors to the rest of the world, and tourists are coming in droves.
Academic text (2002)
Synonyms
207
3.7
Make something available for people to use
Create new ways to make progress or grow
Antonyms
How Many
53
3.2
1
5.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
The verb 'open' (to make accessible) combined with 'doors' (literal gateways) yields a metaphorical sense of creating access or opportunities; the connection is understandable but requires recognizing the figurative use of 'door' as 'opportunity'. This mapping is common cross-linguistically and partially predictable from the parts, but because it relies on metaphor rather than strict compositional semantics it is not fully transparent to all B1 learners.
Etymology
Open doors comes from the simple image of pushing open real doors so you can go into a new room or place. That's why to open doors means to create new 'opportunities' or new ways for someone to succeed.