hair's breadth

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Related to hair's breadth: hairbreadth

hair's breadth

A very small amount or short length. After wandering around the forest for an hour thinking we were lost, it turned out that we were only a hair's breadth away from our campsite. The seal is air-tight—there's not a hair's breadth between the door and the frame.

See also: breadth

a hair's breadth

1. You use a hair's breadth to talk about the smallest possible amount or degree of something. The town suffered heavy bombing, coming within a hair's breadth of being destroyed altogether. He missed the two-minute barrier by a hair's breadth, finishing in 2.00.04 and setting a new British record. The situation was a hair's breadth away from being comical.

2. You use a hair's breadth to talk about the smallest possible distance. A stone flew past him, missing him by a hair's breadth. His head was a hair's breadth away from the car roof.

See also: breadth

a hair's breadth

a very small amount or margin.

See also: breadth

a ˈhair’s breadth

a very small distance or amount: He escaped death by a hair’s breadth. If the other car had been going any faster, he would certainly have been killed. ♢ She was within a hair’s breadth of winning.

Breadth means width.

See also: breadth

References in periodicals archive ?

There was a hair's breadth between the duo at the end of Q2, but come the conclusion to the top-10 shoot-out, Vettel blew everybody away.

Vettell in the driving seat; Sport in Brief

Ninety-five of these are considered "near Earth asteroids" meaning they are 30 million miles away, almost a third of the way to the Sun, yet a hair's breadth in terms of the size of our solar system, reports Discovery News.

Astronomers discover 95 'near-Earth' asteroids

Together, the lost ice is raising sea levels annually by a tiny fraction - about a hair's breadth spread evenly around the world's oceans.

How 1.5m icebergs are melting away every year

The Thandis can be made to build the hotel right down to a hair's breadth and that is what the public want and that is what the council is paid to do.

Enforcing the rules; Mailbag

On Tuesday both the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard andamp; Poor's 500 fell to within a hair's breadth of their lowest close in five years.

Markets unimpressed by US stimulus

I want you to leave this courtroom knowing you have come within a hair's breadth of prison.

Woman, 79, kept 40 cats in squalid conditions despite animal ban

And it was only by a hair's breadth that Greenfield failed to beat teammate Hannah Rich for the national title.

Greenfield gets back on her bike to strike silver and gold

All he knew on the international stage, where he won 75 caps, was the pain of failing by a hair's breadth to qualify for three major finals.

Deano's a real trooper

We're requesting emergency protection for plants and animals that are a hair's breadth from extinction," added Horning.

Wild earth emergencies

That proximity, of the disk is another indicator that the black hole is a whirling dervish, spinning so rapidly that outside material can orbit within a hair's breadth of ultimate doom.

A new spin: X-rays shed light on black holes

Meyer's description of the lovers' emotions is palpable, and readers will be drawn into the couple's spiraling dance, feeling the intense longing that comes from being a hair's breadth away from the thing you want most in the world.

Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight

Animators then step back in to readjust a puppet's expression another hair's breadth, and the process is repeated.

PUTTING LIFE INTO THE `CORPSE'

1m [pounds sterling] distributed to directors in November 2002 in return for renegotiating their contracts, White came within a hair's breadth of the really big bucks in 2003 when Musgrave came knocking on his door.

Sir Peter Davis: Sainsbury may have been floundering, but the man from the Pru did rather nicely

And it's only a hair's breadth of logic away in a mind that accepts this, that the rational response to Haddon's question is, you be a good parent by killing your kids.

Where are you going, my little one? Fetal reduction

As proof that Michael Frayn's farce "Noises Off" was a hair's breadth away from fact, theater buffs should check out British doe "The Shakespearean Job.