hair's breadth
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See also: hairsbreadth
English
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Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
hair's breadth (plural hairs' breadths)
- (idiomatic) A very small amount or distance.
- We won by a hair's breadth.
- He missed me by a hair's breadth when he ran past me yesterday.
- They came within a hair's breadth of contacting electrified water.
- 1856, Wilkie Collins, “The Yellow Mask”, in After Dark, volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., →OCLC, page 163:
- Measure Maddalena, and measure Minerva, and, from forehead to chin, you won't find a hair's breadth of difference between them.
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- "And then at last I see him, and behold, my chance is gone but by a hair's breadth even before I have it, for he is in the very jaws of death, whence no power of mine can draw him."
Derived terms
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Translations
very small amount or distance
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