A miss is as good as a mile

Cultural  

1. A near miss is still a miss and therefore no better than missing by a great margin. Losing a game by one point is still losing.

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miss is as good as a mile, a Idioms  

1. Coming close to success but failing is no better than failing by a lot, as in He was beaten by just one vote, but a miss is as good as a mile. This proverbial expression, first recorded in 1614, is a shortening of the older form, “An inch of a miss is as good [or bad] as a mile of a miss.”

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Example Sentences

However, "a miss is as good as a mile;" a saying which sailors very often have occasion to use.

From Two Years Before the Mast by Dana, Richard Henry