not turn a hair
Idioms-
see turn a hair.
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Not become afraid or upset, remain calm, as in She didn't turn a hair during the bank robbery. This term, also put as without turning a hair, comes from horse racing. After a race, a horse often has roughened, outward-turned hair. Its figurative use, nearly always in the negative, dates from the late 1800s.
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.
America did not turn a hair, any more than it did about the Union Carbide explosion that killed 15,000 Indians in Bhopal in 1984, with only trivial compensation paid.
From The Guardian • Aug. 17, 2010
A philosophical New Dealer and onetime college president, Mr. Horsfall did not turn a hair at the appearance of armed men on the Arkansas landscape.
From Time Magazine Archive
I watched him sharply, but he did not turn a hair nor move a muscle.
From First Person Paramount by Pratt, Ambrose
He did not turn a hair when the trucks of equipment arrived from the house on Martin's Hill; he already had room for it in the cellar.
From The Fourth R by Smith, George Oliver
The British matron looks on, applauds, and does not turn a hair.
From Her Royal Highness Woman by O'Rell, Max
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
