Definition

1. Noun:
   • A letter or petition signed by multiple people in a circular arrangement: This method conceals who signed first, often to prevent identification of a leader or initiator.
   • A tournament format where each competitor plays every other competitor: This ensures all participants face each other, commonly used in sports and games.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Signed Document):

  • The employees sent a round robin to management to express their shared concerns anonymously.
  • They organized a round robin to protest the new policy without any one person taking the blame.

• Noun (Tournament Format):

  • The chess club organized a round robin, so each player had a match against all the others.
  • In a round robin, the team with the most wins at the end is declared the champion.

Advanced Usage

• "Round robin" as an adjective: Describing something organized in this all-play-all or circular format.
  • They used a round robin schedule for the preliminary matches.
  • We are conducting a round robin discussion where everyone gets a turn to speak.

Variants and Related Words

• Round-robin (adjective or noun): Often hyphenated when used as a modifier.
  • A round-robin tournament is very fair but can be time-consuming.

Synonyms

• Petition (for the document sense): A formal written request.
• League or all-play-all tournament (for the competition sense): A contest where all entrants meet.

Related Phrases

• Round robin scheduling: The process of creating fixtures for a round robin tournament.
  • The software helped with the complex round robin scheduling.

Related Idioms

• (No specific idioms are commonly derived solely from "round robin." Its meanings are used directly as described.)

Noun

1. a letter signed by a number of people
2. a tournament in which every contestant plays every other contestant