All levels11 min read · Updated September 2026
Archery Terms: The Complete Glossary (Plain-English Definitions)
Every archery term you'll actually encounter — bows, gear, hunting, technique, scoring — defined in plain English, with an A–Z jump so you can find a word without scrolling.
By the Archery Care Editorial Team
Archery has a vocabulary problem. Walk into a shop and someone will mention brace height, let-off and paradox in one sentence, and nod like you obviously followed. This glossary is the antidote — every term defined the way a friend would explain it, grouped by topic, with an A–Z jump at the top so you can find a word without scrolling four tables.
Bows and their parts
Term What it means Riser The middle of the bow you hold — the handle section the limbs bolt onto. Limbs The flexing arms above and below the riser that store and release the energy. Brace height Distance from the deepest part of the grip to the string at rest. The recurve tuning number. Axle-to-axle (ATA) A compound's length, measured between its cam axles. Shorter = maneuverable, longer = stable. Cam The oval wheel on a compound's limb tips that creates let-off. Let-off The percentage of draw weight a compound sheds at full draw. 80% let-off turns 70 lb into ~14 lb of holding. Draw weight Peak pounds of force needed to draw the bow, measured at 28" for most bows. Draw length How far you personally pull the string — your body's number, not the bow's. ILF International Limb Fitting — the standard that lets recurve risers and limbs interchange across brands. Nocking point The marked spot on the string where the arrow clips on, so every shot starts identically. Tiller The balance of limb strength top vs bottom, measured as the difference in limb-to-string distances. Stacking When draw weight stops climbing smoothly and piles on hard near full draw — short longbows are famous for it. Takedown A bow that comes apart — usually the limbs unbolt from the riser — so you can travel or swap poundage. Most modern recurves are takedowns. Reflex / deflex Geometry: reflex sweeps the tips away from you (more speed); deflex sweeps the grip toward you (more forgiveness). Hybrids do both. Sight window The cutout above the grip that lets you see the target and sit the arrow near the bow's centerline. Arrow shelf The ledge at the bottom of the sight window. Traditional and hunting recurves often shoot off it; target bows usually use a rest instead. Yoke / cables The non-string strands that time a compound's cams. Split ends (yokes) straddle a limb or cam; uneven yoke length tilts the cam. Arrows and accessories
Term What it means Spine An arrow's stiffness. Match it to your draw weight or arrows fly sideways-ish. The number falls as stiffness rises. Fletching The feathers or plastic vanes that steer the arrow. Three per arrow, usually. Nock The plastic slot on the arrow's tail that clips onto the string. Broadhead A bladed hunting point. Fixed blades don't move; mechanicals open on impact. Field point A practice point shaped like a bullet — what targets and bag targets are built for. FOC Front-of-center — the percentage of an arrow's weight sitting forward of its midpoint. Hunters chase higher FOC. Grain The weight unit for arrows and points. 7,000 grains to a pound; a typical hunting arrow finishes around 350–500 grains. Rest What the arrow sits on at the riser. Drop-away rests fall out of the way mid-shot. Whisker biscuit A full-containment rest: the arrow sits in a ring of bristles so it can't fall off. Common on hunting compounds; it does drag the fletching a little. Peep sight The little ring served into a compound string you look through, like a rear sight. Release aid The trigger device compound shooters use instead of fingers. Index, thumb, hinge or tension styles. Stabilizer The weighted rod(s) screwed to the riser that damp vibration and slow your aim's float. Quiver Arrow storage — hip, back, or bolted to the bow itself. Armguard A guard on the bow forearm that stops the string from slapping skin or catching a sleeve. D-loop A short cord tied on the string at the nocking point. A release clips to the loop instead of the serving. Serving Tight thread wrapped over the string — center, loops, or cams — so the strands underneath don't wear. Kisser button A small button on the string that touches the corner of your mouth at full draw — a second anchor check. String silencers Yarn, rubber, or cat-whisker bits on the string that cut the twang. They cost a few fps. Insert The metal sleeve in the arrow's front that the point or broadhead screws into. GPI Grains per inch — how heavy the bare shaft is. Multiply by cut length, then add point, insert, nock, and fletching for finished weight. Tab A leather or synthetic pad that protects a finger-shooter's string fingers. Olympic shooters use a more built-up tab; traditional shooters often use a simpler one. Stringer A strap tool for stringing a recurve or longbow without twisting the limbs. Step-through methods are how risers get a twist. Technique and the shot
Term What it means Anchor point The exact spot on your face the string hand returns to every shot. Consistency lives here. Back tension Driving the draw with the muscles between your shoulder blades instead of your arm — the foundation of a clean release. Follow-through Holding your form until the arrow lands. Dropping the bow early starts before the arrow leaves. Archer's paradox The arrow flexes around the riser as it leaves a finger-shot bow and still flies straight. Physics showing off. Cant Tilting the bow off vertical — deliberate for longbow shooters, a flaw in Olympic recurve. Instinctive aiming Shooting without a sight or conscious reference — eyes on the spot, repetition does the math. Gap shooting Aiming with the arrow point held a learned distance below (or on) the spot at each range. String walking Moving your fingers down the string to change the arrow's angle instead of the aim — barebow's aiming system. Punching Slapping the release trigger in anticipation — the compound shooter's most common disease. Target panic The anxiety-driven inability to hold your aim on the spot or release cleanly. Real, common, fixable. Paper tuning Shooting through paper at close range and reading the tear to diagnose arrow flight. Robin Hood Splitting one arrow with another. Glorious, and expensive — you just destroyed two arrows. Dry fire Releasing the string with no arrow on it. The bow dumps that energy into itself — limbs, cams, and strings pay. Stop and get it checked. Creep Letting the string ease forward off the back wall or clicker before the shot. Groups open vertically. Torque Twisting the bow with your grip, or the string with your release. The usual source of left-right misses that 'the rest should fix.' Peep alignment Rotating the string so the peep faces your eye at full draw, not left or right. Serving or a tubing kit holds the rotation. Back wall The hard stop at full draw on a compound, set by draw stops. That's where you hold — not somewhere in the valley. Valley The soft spot in a compound's draw cycle after let-off, before the wall. A short valley 'wants to go' if you relax. Hunting, crossbow, and bowfishing
Term What it means FPS Feet per second — arrow or bolt speed. Spec-sheet IBO/ATA numbers are a test recipe; a hunting setup usually runs slower. Kinetic energy The energy in a moving arrow (it scales with mass and speed squared). Hunters use it as a rough penetration check, not a promise. Bolt A crossbow arrow: shorter, often heavier, and built for a rail and a closed nock. Do not shoot a regular arrow out of a crossbow. Cocking Drawing a crossbow string back to the latch. Rope cockers and cranks exist because many crossbows sit at 150–200 lb. Anti-dry-fire A crossbow safety that won't let the trigger drop unless a bolt is seated. Still load the bolt before you think about the trigger. Rail The groove on a crossbow that the bolt slides along. Keep it clean; grit there is how vanes shred. Bow press A tool that compresses compound limbs so you can change strings and cables. Not a first-afternoon project on a living-room carpet. Module The plate on a compound cam that sets draw length — and on some bows, peak weight — without swapping the whole cam. Cable guard The rod or roller that pulls compound cables aside so the arrow can pass. Torn fletching often starts here. Draw stop The bit that hits a cable or a limb to create the back wall. Cable stops feel a little spongy; limb stops feel like a brick. Chronograph A gadget that measures arrow speed in fps. Honest numbers come from your arrow, your draw, and your accessories — not the limb sticker. Jumping the string When a deer startles at the shot and drops or steps before the arrow arrives. Noise and distance both feed it. Bowfishing reel A reel — bottle, spin, or AMS-style — mounted to a bow so you can retrieve the arrow after a fish shot. Bowfishing rest Usually a slotted or capture rest that holds a heavy fish arrow. Many fishing bows also run zero let-off so the string can go the instant a carp rolls. Fish point A barbed or retractable point made to hold a fish. It is not a broadhead, and a broadhead is a miserable fish point. Competition and scoring
Term What it means End A round of arrows shot before walking to score — usually 3 or 6. FITA / WA round The old and current names for World Archery's standard target rounds — 70m for Olympic recurve. X-ring The inner circle inside the 10. Breaks ties, separates the great from the good. Gold The yellow center zone. 'Shooting gold' means what you'd hope. 3D archery Courses of foam animal targets at unmarked distances, scored on vital zones. Field archery Roving courses with marked and unmarked distances over terrain. Barebow Recurve class with no sight, no stabilizers, no clicker — string walking allowed. Clicker The strip of metal that clicks when an Olympic archer reaches exact full draw — a draw-length alarm. Flu-flu Big spiral fletching that kills an arrow's range on purpose, for aerial and small-game shooting. IBO / ATA speed Standardized bow-speed ratings measured with specific setups. Compare bows only within one standard. A few of these words have full guides — brace height, spine, draw weight, bow speed — linked below the FAQ. If you hit a term in the wild we skipped, that's a gap we want to know about.
FAQ
- What is brace height?
- The distance from the deepest part of the grip to the string at rest. On a recurve it's the first tuning number you set — too low and the string slaps your forearm and the bow gets loud; too high and you give up speed. Twist the string to raise it, untwist to lower it. The brace-height chart maps typical ranges by bow length.
- What does let-off mean?
- How much peak draw weight a compound sheds once the cams roll over. 80% let-off on a 70 lb bow leaves about 14 lb to hold at full draw. Recurves and most longbows have none — you hold every pound while you aim. That's why a 35 lb recurve can feel harder to shoot than a 60 lb compound.
- What is arrow spine?
- How stiff the shaft is. The printed number falls as stiffness rises, so a 340 spine is stiffer than a 500. Match it to draw weight, draw length, and point weight or the arrow flexes wrong and groups open. Charts and a spine calculator get you in the window; a shop with your bow in hand finishes the job.
- What is FOC?
- Front-of-center: the share of an arrow's finished weight that sits forward of its midpoint. Hunters push FOC up with heavier points or inserts so the shaft carries momentum and the broadhead flies point-first. A kinetic-energy calculator will spit out both FOC and KE from the weights you already have.
- What is a dry fire?
- Releasing the string with no arrow on it. The bow has nowhere to send the energy, so the limbs, cams, and string take the hit. Compounds and crossbows are the expensive casualties. If it happens, stop shooting and have the bow checked — don't 'see if it still works' with another arrow.
Go deeper on the words above
Put it into practice
More guides
Archery Safety Rules: Range Commands, Gear Checks, Dry FireHow Far Can a Bow Shoot? Records vs Real-World RangeOlympic Archery Rules & Scoring, Explained SimplyOlympic Archery Equipment: The Complete Recurve KitIndoor vs Outdoor Target Archery: Gear, Distances & ScoringTypes of Bows: The 4 Families and How to Pick Yours