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Synonyms

hair's-breadth

British  

noun

    1. a very short or imperceptible margin or distance

    2. ( as modifier )

      a hair's-breadth escape

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

A comic encounter with a stubborn hippo blocking a road is one thing; a corroded bureaucracy and hair’s-breadth escapes from a Bengal tiger are another, especially when you have only Soviet-era antibiotics to help.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 31, 2024

As much as anything else, Salyut-7 is about spectacle, about one daring hair’s-breadth survival after another, and about how a resourceful, dogged team deals with an escalating series of potentially fatal situations.

From The Verge • Sep. 29, 2017

As the FBI dragged its feet, they didn’t know — no one did — that the state of emergency was a hair’s-breadth from activation.

From Salon • Sep. 16, 2017

This time, a New Hampshire win would go even further to juice up her campaign after her unsatisfying hair's-breadth win in Iowa.

From US News • Feb. 9, 2016

If there were nothing for you to push back against your forward push would not move the cart a hair's-breadth.

From The Story of Great Inventions by Burns, Elmer Ellsworth