open-ended adjective

1 (especially BrE) (AmE usually open-end)

without any limits, aims or dates fixed in advance:

an open-ended discussion

The contract is open-ended.

2 (Finance ) (also open-end, especially in AmE)

(about a loan) allowing extra amounts to be borrowed at a later time, under the same conditions as the original loan:

The open-ended loan allows us to borrow money when we need it.

an open-end credit account

⇨ REVOLVING CREDIT

3 (Finance ) (usually open-end)

used to describe a type of investment company that can issue and buy back shares at any time according to how many members it has, rather than having a fixed number of shares:

an open-ended fund/investment company

OPP CLOSED-END ⇨ UNIT TRUST

4 (also open-end, less frequent) (both especially AmE)

(about a question) requiring sb to answer with an opinion rather than with ‘yes' or ‘no':

Avoid open-ended questions in the survey, as these are difficult to quantify.

SYN OPEN

• expand
• expansion
• expatriate
• expectancy theory
• expedite
• expendable
• expendable income
• expenditure
• expenditure tax
• expense
• expense account
• expense ratio
• expenses claim
• expensive
• experience
• experience curve
• experienced
• experience economy
• expert
• expertise
• expert system
• expiration
• expire
• expiry
• expiry date