bull's eye

The very center of a shooting or archery target is a bull's eye. An archer gets ten points if her arrow hits the bull's eye.

The familiar design of ever-smaller circles within circles is a bull's eye, whether it's an actual target or just resembles one. Darts players might yell, "Bull's eye!" when they hit that center ring. The term originated with 1880s shooting competitions in England, either from the idea that the black circle in the middle of the target looks like the eye of a bull, or possibly a five shilling coin that was popularly called a bull's eye.

Definitions of bull's eye

1. noun

   the center of a target
   synonyms: bull

   type of:

   center, centre, midpoint

   a point equidistant from the ends of a line or the extremities of a figure
2. noun

   in target shooting: a score made by hitting the center of the target
   “in repeated sets of five shots his numbers of bull's-eyes varied”

   type of:

   score

   the act of scoring in a game or sport
3. noun

   something that exactly succeeds in achieving its goal
   “scored a bull's eye”

   synonyms: bell ringer, home run, mark

   type of:

   success

   an attainment that is successful