sitting duck
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
An easy target for attack or criticism
Literally: a duck sitting
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The one who turned up to preside over my fiscal destruction was particularly dismal, a desolately unattractive woman in a pink cardie who looked like a sitting duck for household cleanser advertisements.
It all made good sense at the time, but it has turned the middle - classes into sitting ducks, waiting to be plucked by Mr Smith.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “sitting duck” mean?
An easy target for attack or criticism Literally: a duck sitting
Is “sitting duck” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.