near miss

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English

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Noun

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near miss (plural near misses)

  1. A miss which was nearly a hit or collision.
    • 1975 John F. Hilgenberg; quoted in Arthur J. C. Lavalle, Last flight from Saigon (USAF, 1978), p.101:
      ... two aircraft, one flying level across the field, another climbing after a missed approach, had an extremely near miss, in my estimation, less than 50 feet, before the lower pilot saw the higher aircraft and broke violently to the right in the darkness.
    • 2000, Samuel B. Griffith, The Battle for Guadalcanal, University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 177:
      The first wave, 24 dive bombers, fell on her through broken clouds; she took two hits and an uncomfortably close near miss.
    • 2019 October 23, Rail, page 19:
      [...] it concludes that when the number of 'near misses' are considered, "we have been extremely fortunate that we have not been discussing much higher fatality figures, given that a significant number of track workers have 'got clear' within a few seconds or less of passing trains".
  2. (by extension) A scenario which ends safely but might well have ended in disaster.
    • 2009 April 27, Mine Safety, Health Administration, Failure to Operate Boom Trucks Safely Using Proper Procedures:
      In recent years there have been two fatalities and one near miss due to the inappropriate use of boom trucks.
    • 2010 December 14, “Sweden's Near Miss”, in New York Times, p.A34:
      As in New York City’s Times Square seven months ago, hundreds of innocent bystanders might have been killed. Fortunately, the would-be terrorist was the only fatality.
  3. (by extension) An attempt which fails narrowly; a performance which falls just short of a certain benchmark.
    • 1962 September 11, “No Chance Tears After Near Miss”, in Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence, Kansas, page 16:
      Dean Chance ... wasn't crying over his near miss of a no-hitter Monday night.
    • 2011 February 11, Robert Kitson, “Six Nations 2011: Luke McLean happy to swap green and gold for blue”, in The Guardian, London:
      Italy know they cannot wallow in the disappointment of last week's agonising near miss against Ireland.
    • 2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport‎:
      After several near misses, Van Persie finally reached three figures by turning in Walcott's cross before Jaaskelainen saved from Walcott when one-on-one.

Usage notes

It is sometimes claimed that concept of a near miss would be better expressed as near hit. However, near is used in the phrase with the sense "close" (compare "near future", "near neighbour") rather than the sense "approximate" (compare "near certainty", "near standstill").

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