point blank

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point blank (not comparable)

1. 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.
2. 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.

point blank (not comparable)

1. Horizontally (as the angle at which a projectile is launched); directly or straight (at the target).
2. (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.