targeting

Pluraltargetings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of target.

   The campaign is targeting first-time voters in rural districts.

   Targeting the wrong market cost the startup its early funding.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. As a participle it builds progressives (is targeting first-time voters). As a gerund it acts as a noun yet still takes a direct object (targeting the wrong market). That object is the quickest way to tell it from the plain noun, which needs of: the targeting of hospitals. Programmers use the verb too: a compiler targeting a new processor produces code for it.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A single act or instance of selecting a person or thing as a target or focus.

   The report condemned the deliberate targeting of hospitals during the war.

   Each targeting of a new audience was tested before the launch.

3. 3
   adjective

   Concerned with moving a protein or placing it correctly inside or outside a specific region of a cell.

   Like a shipping label that routes a package to a specific room in a large building.

   The targeting sequence directs the newly made protein to the mitochondria.

   Researchers altered the targeting domain so the protein would stay in the nucleus.

   Note

   A cell biologist's adjective that sits before nouns such as sequence, signal or domain. It names the stretch of a protein that works like an address label, sending it to the mitochondria or keeping it in the nucleus. Keep it apart from the verb form. In a targeting sequence the word classifies the sequence, while in a drug targeting the nucleus it takes an object.

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