free-for-all

plural free-for-alls

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

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

   2 more examples

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

   1919, Burton Jesse Hendrick, The Age of Big Business

   […] 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.

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

   Synonyms: FFA

2. video gamesA deathmatch, sometimes specifically one in which every player is pitted against all the others.

1. not comparableOf a fight, competition, etc., characterized by the absence or scarcity of formal rules or limitations.

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

   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

   2 more examples

   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.

   1913 October, Jack London, The Valley of the Moon, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC

   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; […]

   1917, Zane Grey, Wildfire