shooting gallery
Americannoun
-
a place equipped with targets and used for practice in shooting.
-
Slang. a place where drug addicts can buy and inject themselves with narcotic drugs.
noun
-
an area, often enclosed, designed for target practice, shooting, etc
-
slang a house where heroin addicts inject themselves
Etymology
Origin of shooting gallery
First recorded in 1830–40
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.
"The element of surprise is like those children's toys with a shooting gallery, a little hammer, and a bunny that pops up in different windows... you have to be quick enough to catch it."
From Barron's • May 17, 2026
Of course, this is very dangerous thinking, regardless of how straight Jack Reacher’s aim may be in the moral universe's shooting gallery.
From Salon • Jan. 20, 2024
Rxd3, and White’s pawns will prove sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for Black’s rook.
From Washington Times • Jan. 2, 2024
The Webb was launched spectacularly and successfully on Dec. 25, 2021, but space is a shooting gallery, too.
From New York Times • Apr. 18, 2023
Next to the steakhouse is a shooting gallery, where the fake guns have such poor aim that no one can hit the little bull’s-eyes attached to plastic cactuses, wild-eyed cowboy cutouts, and stuffed, patchy-haired bobcats.
From "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" by Dusti Bowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
