cross hairs

British

plural noun

Also called: cross wires. two fine mutually perpendicular lines or wires that cross in the focal plane of a theodolite, gunsight, or other optical instrument and are used to define the line of sight

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Musk’s relationship with Trump wasn’t the only one in Kimmel’s cross hairs Thursday.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 8, 2024

Cueillette had Michelin justifiably in its cross hairs, and it has paid off: The restaurant was awarded its first star this month.

From New York Times • Mar. 28, 2024

But then FTX collapsed practically overnight, putting him in the cross hairs of law enforcement.

From New York Times • Mar. 15, 2024

They are expected to argue that before he fell into investigators’ cross hairs, there was little evidence he was slipping mentally.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2023

I had also noticed that every time I got the cross hairs on anything and squeezed the trigger, they were on something else when the trigger went plonk.

From Four-Day Planet by Piper, H. Beam

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023