target

A butt or mark to shoot at, as for practice, or to test the accuracy of a firearm, or the force of a projectile.

Noun

  1. A butt or mark to shoot at, as for practice, or to test the accuracy of a firearm, or the force of a projectile.
    • Take careful aim at the target.
  2. A goal or objective.
    • Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.[…]Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational...
    • They have a target to finish the project by November.
  3. An object of criticism or ridicule.
  4. A person, place, or thing that is frequently attacked, criticized, or ridiculed.
  5. A kind of shield:
    • These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus. - c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in...

    1. A kind of small shield or buckler, used as a defensive weapon in war.

    2. (obsolete) A shield resembling the Roman scutum, larger than the modern buckler.

      • The target or buckler was carried by the heavy armed foot, it answered to the scutum of the Romans; its form was sometimes that of a rectangular parallelogram, but more commonly had its bottom rounded off; it was...

    3. (heraldry) A bearing representing a buckler.

      • The fourth field is also party per pale, and for the dutchy of Genevois, contains chequered Or and azure: The sinister for the dutchy of Montserat, a target, gules. The point Or is a black eagle of the county of...
  6. The pattern or arrangement of a series of hits made by a marksman on a butt or mark.
    • He made a good target.
  7. The sliding crosspiece, or vane, on a leveling staff.
  8. A conspicuous disk attached to a switch lever to show its position, or for use as a signal.
  9. the number of runs that the side batting last needs to score in the final innings in order to win
  10. The tenor of a metaphor.
  11. The codomain of a function; the object at which a morphism points.
    • Coordinate term: source
  12. The translated version of a document, or the language into which translation occurs.
    • Do you charge by source or target?

Origin

From Middle French targette, targuete, diminutive of targe (“light shield”), from Old French, from Frankish *targa (“buckler”), akin to Old Norse targa (“small round shield”) (whence also Old English targe, targa (“shield”)) from Proto-Germanic *targǭ (“edge”), from Proto-Indo-European *derǵʰ- (“fenced lot”). Akin to Old High German zarga (“side wall, rim”) (German Zarge (“frame”)), Spanish tarjeta (“card”).

Forms

targets

Synonyms

target language

Derived

antitarget apotarget autotarget biotarget digital target digitized target drop target easy target geotarget high-value target hypertarget immunotarget microtarget mistarget moving target multitarget non-target nontarget non-target-like off target off-target oncotarget on target phosphotarget

Verb

  1. To aim something, especially a weapon, at (a target).
  2. To aim for as an audience or demographic.
    • The advertising campaign targeted older women.
  3. To produce code suitable for.
    • This cross-platform compiler can target any of several processors.

Forms

targets targeting targetting targeted targetted

Derived

targetability targetable targetingly