Adopted by civilians in UK, in Aus., in S. dead centre on target: RAF: WW2 and after. 'Spot on' has a short entry in Eric Partridge, 'A Dictionary of Catch Phrases American and British': 'Right on the spot, orig. Then, I recalled spot balls being used in billiards, so, googled 'origins of spot on' and got two results. After dropping the bombs would comment, 'that one was spot on'. My first thought was that this would be more of a bomb aimers term.

Location: Portland, Oregon, United StatesĪs a long range rifle shooter I use a scope with a 'dot' centre, but, this is purely an aiming device, though we do mark the impact point on the target with a 'spotting disc'. So yes, „Getroffen!” would be a good equivalent. From the timing I'll take a wild guess that it has to do with artillery jargon for correctly spotting, aligning the sights, and hitting a target. What kind of image is it? Which of the many meanings of spot would make sense? Is it 'spotlight on the right place/point' or is it something else? I assume as 'on' is placed after 'spot' that a noun has been dropped - perhaps on ? As for its origin, I haven't been able to find much beyond the fact that it is first attested in 1920 ' spot on,' and that the Online Etymology Dictionary also spells it without the hyphen. His description of Mary was spot on! - der Volltreffer Now we could go one step further. spot on very accurate or exactly on the target. Well, I've never digged so deep into TFD. If one scrolls down to translations (German or any other language you can choose) 'spot on' is the last line of the words given for translation. By the way is it possible to suggest to TFD they should add this idiom under their entry 'spot'? Spot on, Ted! I'm presenting my find here as I guess there will be some on this forum who don't know this idiom and as it took me some time to find it in dictionaries. Her analysis of the situation was absolutely spot-on. If you say that someone is spot-on, you mean that they are are exactly right or accurate, used in informal British English. I had to take the trouble to use one of those heavy volumes and found it in Pons Collins Cobuild: spot-on, also spot on. TFD didn't have it although the entry 'spot' is rather long and has idioms too. Of course I could assume from the context that the meaning must be 'you are right' - but as it was something new to me I at once pricked up my ears and went to verify this idiom.

LeonAzul used it in the thread 'continuous forms of verbs'. I've just found this idiom here on the forum.

Der volltreffer