Anyone know the origin of the term “Point Blank” as in close range (“He was shot Point Blank”)?
Know, no. Willing to speculate, yes.
My guess is that point refers to distance, as in “the closest point” and the like. Points can be ordered by how close they are to the given object, as point one, point two, etc. Point blank would mean something so close that it’s not on the chart of measuring distance; it’s right there.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dates “point blank” to 1591 and give two definitions, the first of which is: “a: marked by no appreciable drop below initial horizontal line of flight b: so close to a target that a missile fired will travel in a straight line to the mark.”
From The origin of Point Blank.
“The blank here is the French word blanc, for the colour white. Archery and artillery targets conventionally had a white spot at the centre at which arrows and shot were aimed. So to point blank was to aim directly at the white. The phrase is known from the end of the sixteenth century, and the figurative sense had developed by the 1650s.”
Yeah and funnee pretty much nailed this one. I would add that point blank range varies a lot by weapon. You can point blank with a lot of rifles, and still be hitting your target at a 100m. The bullet will land lower than it should, but it will probably still hit.
Stephen Ambrose writes about a modern example of the original “point blank” style of shooting in Citizen Soldiers.
Somewhere in Northern Europe in WWII, a bunch of Germans were holed up in a tough building and were proving difficult to dislodge. A small-unit commander noticed a 155mm howitzer (read: big-ass gun) crew lounging about nearby and asked them for help. The gun was lined up in the street facing the building and the crew adjusted it by sighting the building through the breech of the gun. The results were spectacular, as the massive concussion of the shot and the explosion of the six-inch shell combined with devastating effect on the building’s occupants.
After a few shots, the dazed defenders surrendered, complaining that such tactics were “inhumane.”
I would also like to add that Yeah and FunneeFarmer are correct in their definitions. Point Blank range is the range that the weapon is sighted to hit dead on without any vertical adjustment made up the shooter either upward or downward (Yes, rifle bullets do travel in what looks like an arc from line of sight).
This also indicates that news reporters and police reports mistakenly use the term “point Blank” to mean very close when it actually means nothing of the sort. As a previously poster pointed out, rifles can be sighted to be “point blank” at several hundred yards. I don’t think you will ever hear an anchorperson report that “The sniper shot his victims from 250 yards away, point blank range for his particular weapon”.
Actually, it’s both: A bullet travels in an arc, so “point blank” would be at the muzzle, just as the bullet comes out (heading up in the arc), and also at, say, 200 yards (crossing the line-o’-sight on the down side of the arc).
FYI, the aim-thru-the-breech technique is called “boresighting”.