Idioms

hairbreadth

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by a hair

By an extremely short or slim margin (of distance, time, or another measure). They're just about to close the gates! It looks like we made the flight by a hair. The race was neck and neck till the very end, but Sally won it by a hair. Hundreds of people avoided death by a hair when their apartment building caught on fire in the middle of the night.
See also: by, hair

by a hair's breadth

By an extremely short distance or slim margin of time. They're just about to close the gates! It looks like we made the flight by a hair's breadth. The race was neck and neck till the very end, but Sally won it by a hair's breadth. Hundreds of people avoided death by a hair's breadth when their apartment building caught on fire in the middle of the night.
See also: breadth, by

by a whisker

By an extremely short or slim margin (of distance, time, or another measure). They're just about to close the gates! It looks like we made the flight by a whisker. The race was neck and neck till the very end, but Sally won it by a whisker. Hundreds of people avoided death by a mere whisker when their apartment building caught on fire in the middle of the night.
See also: by, whisker
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

by a hair('s breadth)

 and by a whisker
Fig. just barely; by a very small distance. I just missed getting on the plane by a hair's breadth. I made it onto the last flight by a hair!
See also: by, hair
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

by a hair

Also, by a hairbreadth or whisker . Very narrowly. For example, His serve was out by a hair, or We made our flight by a hairbreadth, or Dad missed hitting the pole by a whisker. The first two hyperboles for the very narrowest margin date from the 1300s and 1400s respectively; whisker meaning "a small amount" was first recorded in 1913. Also see by the skin of one's teeth; hang by a hair.
See also: by, hair
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

by a whisker

If you succeed or fail to do something by a whisker, you succeed or fail, but only just. The French government only scraped a Yes vote by a whisker. At the end we lost by a whisker and we were so disappointed.
See also: by, whisker
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
See also:
References in periodicals archive
The result is just a hairbreadth away from Wacky Packages--dorky Mad Magazine-esque product parody stickers--only with adult sexuality.
Luke Butler: SILVERMAN GALLERY
During a series of high-speed chases and hairbreadth escapes, Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig) gradually reveal themselves as extraterrestrial visitors who fell to earth aboard the UFO, which was seized by Burke's team and moved to a super-secret U.S.
'Mountain' franchise is in peak condition
He adds that with the help of God they would not succeed in forcing him to stray even by a hairbreadth from Mosaic and Talmudic law.
Joseph Sinzheim, president of Napoleon's Sanhedrin and the first chief rabbi of France
dollar hovered in a hairbreadth range of about 0.20 yen in the morning, amid a dearth of fresh market-moving incentives.
Dollar moves little at mid-90 yen range in thin Tokyo morning deals
Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.
Terrorism is a global threat and needs to be battled collectively: Zardari
When Clinton came within a hairbreadth of winning the popular vote, but the superdelegates went in a wave with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recommendations rather than their constituents', I was beyond disappointed.
My November surprise: what will it take to get a real progressive in the White House?
What follows is a series of adventures, culminating in a hairbreadth escape for Renard after he once again dupes his archnemesis Ysengrin.
Pilgrims and prostitutes: costume and identity construction in twelfth-century liturgical drama
"It's a no-brainer." In many ways, as warmly as she speaks of Chambers, she seems a hairbreadth from severing her Exodus ties.
The believers: three years after the furor over a teenage boy who was forcibly sent to one of its camps, the ex-gay movement may be losing steam. Meanwhile, ex-gay survivors are gaining strength. But are the two groups really that different?
In fact, Johnny's buck came within a hairbreadth of becoming the largest typical whitetail ever taken!
Record breaker? Johnny King: Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin
In 1983, the nations came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war, but the Chernobyl explosion changed everything.
Arsenals of Folly
The latest survey carried out for the Electoral Commission shows that people agree by a margin of 4 to 1 that devolution has improved the way Wales is run - a massive turnaround from the hairbreadth majority of 1997.
Changing the way Wales is governed
Doing it seemed to taunt disaster, as leaning a hairbreadth too far in either direction could be curtains for him.
The great Henry
The artist chronicled the ups and downs of U of Washington football from 1960 to 1982 in his biweekly "Hairbreadth Husky" sports cartoons.
Obituaries
McCausland had a 33-year career at the Post-Intelligencer, where his Hairbreadth Husky - with a bandaged nose and fedora - chronicled the ups and downs of University of Washington football from 1960 to 1982.
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