hair's-breadth
Definition
Noun: A very small distance or margin; an extremely narrow interval or degree of separation. It describes a gap or difference so tiny it is almost immeasurable, often used to emphasize how close something was to happening or not happening.
Usage
The term is used to describe a situation where the outcome was extremely close. It is almost always used with the preposition "by" (e.g., by a hair's-breadth) to indicate the narrow margin of an escape, victory, or defeat.
Examples
- The car missed the pedestrian by a hair's-breadth.
- The bullet passed a hair's-breadth from his head.
- She won the race by a hair's-breadth, just one-hundredth of a second ahead.
Advanced Usage
- Attributive Noun Use: It can be used before another noun to describe a very narrow margin.
- It was a hair's-breadth victory.
- He made a hair's-breadth escape from the collapsing building.
Variants and Related Words
- Hairbreadth (noun): An alternative, single-word spelling with the same meaning.
- a hairbreadth escape
- Hair's breadth (noun phrase): The same term, often written as two words.
Synonyms
- Whisker
- Fraction of an inch
- Narrow margin
- Slim margin
- Razor-thin margin
Idioms and Phrases
- By a hair's-breadth: The standard idiomatic phrase meaning by an extremely small margin.
- The proposal passed by a hair's-breadth.
- Within a hair's-breadth of (something): Very close to experiencing something (often something negative).
- He came within a hair's-breadth of losing his job.
Noun
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a very small distance or space
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they escaped by a hair's-breadth
-
they lost the election by a whisker
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