point-blank

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.

point-blank (not comparable)

1. (forensics) Very close; not touching but not more than a few metres (yards).
2. (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.
   • 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.

3. Disconcertingly straightforward or blunt; outright.

   a point-blank assertion

   • 1872 September – 1873 July, Thomas Hardy, “‘VII’”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes. […], volumes (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.

point-blank (not comparable)

1. In a direct manner, without hesitation.
   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXXVIII, in Middlemarch […], volumes (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 […], volumes (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, →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?’