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

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

She had already failed twice to flee Algeria, where her activism had put her in the government’s cross hairs.

From New York Times • Mar. 11, 2023

In the cross hairs now is Ms. Scott, who joined the network at its inception in 1996 as a programming assistant and worked her way up to become chief executive in 2018.

From New York Times • Mar. 4, 2023

While I was struggling to get the sights back on the monster, the ship gave another lurch and the cross hairs were right on its neck, about six feet below the head.

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