point blank
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See also: pointblank and point-blank
English
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Adjective
point blank (not comparable)
- The distance between a gun and a target such that it requires minimal effort in aiming it. In particular no allowance needs to be made for effects of gravity, target movement or wind in aiming the projectile.
- Blunt, outright.
- 1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter XXIV, in My Bondage and My Freedom. , New York, Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan , →OCLC:
- Here I was brought into point blank collison with Rev. Dr. Cox, who made me the subject not only of bitter remark in the convention, but also of a long denunciatory letter published in the New York Evangelist and other American papers.
- 1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter 2, in A Study in Scarlet. A Detective Story, 3rd edition, London, New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co., , published 1892, →OCLC:
- Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point blank question, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me.
Adverb
point blank (not comparable)
- Horizontally (as the angle at which a projectile is launched); directly or straight (at the target).
- (idiomatic) Directly; bluntly; without pretense or caution.
- I asked him point blank whether he was cheating on his wife.
- 1896, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter I, in Tom Sawyer, Detective:
- There’s a neighbor named Brace Dunlap that’s been wanting to marry their Benny for three months, and at last they told him point blank and once for all, he COULDN’T; so he has soured on them, and they’re worried about it.
Translations
straight at the target
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directly; bluntly; without pretense or caution
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