# point-blank
## English

* It has been requested that this entry be merged with point blank.

### Etymology

From French point blanc (“white point”), originally referring to the white spot to be aimed at on a target (see blank's "bull's eye") or alternatively into empty space being fired horizontally.

### Adjective

point-blank (not comparable)
* (forensics) Very close; not touching but not more than a few metres (yards).
* (ballistics) The distance between a firearm and a target where a projectile in flight is expected to strike the centre of the target without adjusting the elevation of the firearm.
* (ballistics) The angle between an airplane’s gun turret and a target aircraft, where a projectile in flight is expected to strike the centre of the target without adjusting the angle of the gun.
** 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, “‘I was the Flail of the Lord’”, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:Now, here's a useful tool—.470, telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty. That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years ago.
** 2014 December 24, “Assam rebels kill scores on night of brutal attacks in Indian state”, in The Guardian‎:Heavily armed militants launched a series of coordinated attacks in rural Assam on Tuesday, pulling villagers from their homes and shooting them at point-blank range, witnesses said.
** 2022 April 3, Carlotta Gall, Andrew E. Kramer, “In a Kyiv Suburb,‘They Shot Everyone They Saw’”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:Fifteen of those people had died of natural causes, the rest from gunshot wounds, including point-blank shots, or from shrapnel.
* Disconcertingly straightforward or blunt; outright.
    a point-blank assertion
** 1872 September – 1873 July, Thomas Hardy, “‘VII’”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Tinsley Brothers, […], published 1873, →OCLC:At this point-blank denial, Stephen turned his face away decisively, and preserved an ominous silence; […]
** 1910 August-September, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in The Secret Sharer‎, Harper's Magazine:Yes, but surliness might have provoked a point-blank question.
** 1951 April, R. S. McNaught, “Railway Enthusiasts”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 269:In recent years, the attitude of the railway authorities towards large-scale visits to works and sheds on the whole, has, happily, veered round from suspicion, and even point-blank opposition, to one of co-operation and ready welcome.

#### Translations
### Adverb

point-blank (not comparable)
* In a direct manner, without hesitation.
** 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXXVIII, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):One day, when he was doing some valuation for me, he told me point-blank that clergymen seldom understood anything about business, and did mischief when they meddled; […]
** 1878, Henry James, chapter VIII, in The Europeans‎, Macmillan and Co.:About a week afterwards she said to him, point-blank, “Are you seriously making love to your little cousin?”
** 1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXVII, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC:My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance.
** 1895, Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 12:He was getting on well, so I understood, and had secured a fairly substantial position, and I had therefore ventured to ask him point-blank for the loan of fifty pounds.
** 1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC; republished as The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Possibility, New York, N.Y.: Stone & Kimball, 1896, →OCLC:Montgomery fired and missed, bowed his head, threw up his arm, and turned to run. I fired, and the Thing still came on; fired again, point-blank, into its ugly face.
** 1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as The Gods of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1918 September, →OCLC:For answer the girl raised her revolver and fired point-blank at him. Without a sound he sank to the earth, dead.
** 2020, Noreena Hertz, chapter 6, in The Lonely Century, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN:In fact in 2017, former Facebook president Sean Parker told news media company Axios point-blank that the central question driving Facebook in its early days was ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.