zero in
verb
Forms zeroes in zeros in zeroing in zeroed in
- verb To focus one's aim; to zoom in and center (on something). “The pilot zeroed in on the bunker and launched a guided missile.”
- verb To successfully narrow down a search (for). “We have zeroed in on the source of the problem.”
- verb To concentrate or focus one's attention (on a task). “One member of the check fraud team will zero in on the fingerprints.”
- verb (idiomatic) To converge (on). “At the spring sale, everyone zeroed in on the bargain clothes.”
Synonyms
Etymology
The phrase possibly comes from adjusting a sighting mechanism of a firearm to minimise the discrepancy between where the sight points and where a bullet lands on a target.
Another possible source is the Cartesian coordinate system in mathematics. In the coordinate system, points are defined relative to an origin (point of reference) labeled O, which has an (x,y) coordinate pair of (0,0).
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “zero in”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details