targets

Noun

target (plural targets)

1. A butt or mark to shoot at, as for practice, or to test the accuracy of a firearm, or the force of a projectile.
   • Take careful aim at the target.
2. A goal or objective.
   • Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.[…]Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising...2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
3. An object of criticism or ridicule.
4. A person, place, or thing that is frequently attacked, criticized, or ridiculed.
5. A kind of small shield or buckler, used as a defensive weapon in war.
   • These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
6. (obsolete) A shield resembling the Roman scutum, larger than the modern buckler.
   • The Target (x) or Buckler (y) was carried by the heavy armed foot, it anſwered to the ſcutum of the Romans; its form was ſometimes that of a rectangular parallelogram, but more commonly had its bottom rounded off; it was generally convex, being curved in its breadth.1786, Francis Grose, “Tilting Armour”, in A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, […], London: […] S. Hooper, […], →OCLC, page 25

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