From Old English scotung, verbal noun from shoot (v.).
Shooting gallery: 1836.
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A raised area, often having a stepped or sloping floor, in a theatre, church, or other public building, to accommodate spectators, exhibits, etc.
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From Old French galerie, “a long portico”; From Medieval Latin galeria; “covered walk or passageway, narrow and partly open passageway along a wall,”: circa fourteenth century.
Smashing the Mirror
“Troubling as it is, this last point is instructive. If nothing else, it stands as a reminder of a pattern that persists across the arts in the West, from the Booker Prize to the BP Portrait Award: whereby what is marketed as an effort to acknowledge and offer material support to cultural endeavour serves, at the same time, to naturalise the wealth, societal position, and often rapacious for-profit policies of the corporate sector.”