1. Mil. A day on which troops are drawn up for exercise in field evolutions; a military review.
1747. A Scheme for Equipping and Maintaining Sixteen Men of War, 32. These periodical Intervals of eating and drinking, as they have succeeded that more noble and antient Exercise of Justs and Turnaments, are to the Citizens, as it were Field Days, for improving and approving their Valour and Prowess, it is difficult to say, whether they have been Gainers by the Exchange.
1832. Regul. Instr. Cavalry, III. 62. Almost every movement at a Field Day should be followed by an Advance in Line.
1869. E. A. Parkes, A Manual of Practical Hygiene (ed. 3), 624. Our present field-days represent the very acme and culminating point of war; the few bright moments when the long marches and the wearisome guards are rewarded by the wild excitement of battle.
b. transf. and fig. A day occupied with brilliant or exciting events.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xx. The mean pomp and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. viii. This terrible field-day passed over without any severe visitations in the shape of punishments.
1864. C. Knight, Passages of a Working Life, I. i. 209. Thursday, the 27th of February, is to be a great field-day in the Commons.
2. A day spent in the field.
a. Hunting. A day on which the hunt meets.
1823. Byron, Juan, XIII. cviii.
| Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days, | |
| For then the gentlemen were rather tired) | |
| Display’d some sylph-like figures in its maze: | |
| Then there was small-talk ready when required. |
b. ‘A day when explorations, scientific investigations, etc., as of a society, are carried on in the field’ (Cent. Dict.).
