sitting duck

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sitting duck (plural sitting ducks)

1. (idiomatic) An obvious, vulnerable target.

   For God's sake, Sergeant, we need to get to cover – we're sitting ducks out here.

   • 1989 February 5, Christopher Wittke, “Bye Bye Bathhouse”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 29, page 16:

     [Now that the last gay bathhouse has closed] the AIDS Action Committee will no longer have all of those sitting ducks to reach with education

   • 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:

     Joker: We're sitting ducks out here. I have to try to lose them in the debris field!

   • 2023 February 13, Andrew E. Kramer, “‘Our Losses Were Gigantic’: Life in a Sacrificial Russian Assault Wave”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 20 March 2023:

     The soldiers were sitting ducks, sent forth by Russian commanders to act essentially as human cannon fodder in an assault.