Meaning
Something that keeps changing while you aim at it - a goal, definition, or standard that shifts faster than efforts to meet it. The phrase is the standard complaint of regulators chasing technology and researchers chasing definitions. Neutral-technical register, the default figure for shifting standards; often paired with hit, chase, or aim at. The literal sense (gunnery and biathlon) still does plain work. Regional use: General English.
Origin
A compound so transparent it hardly needed inventing: aim at a target that moves and you must lead it, guess it, or wait. The figurative sense is thoroughly settled - Wiktionary defines it as a goal that is constantly changing, with citations from a 1997 study calling the dominant discourse of a community at best a moving target and a 2019 reviewer describing Catch-22's Colonel Cathcart and his moving target of a mission quota, the forever-recount of missions standing for every shifting standard since. Farlex's idiom gloss is the working definition: someone or something constantly changing, making it difficult to describe, understand, or deal with - its example being technology standards, though law, slang, and adolescence serve as well. It pairs naturally with its near-neighbours goalposts that move and a shifting baseline, and against the rare fixed point worth celebrating.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a constantly moving target
- a moving goalpost
- like aiming at a moving target
Usage Examples
- Defining platform harm is a moving target; every answer is obsolete by the consultation's second round.
- The weight limit had become a moving target, dropping a kilo every time he nearly made it.
- Herding cats is difficult, the manager conceded, but at least the cats stand still; this is a moving target.