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
He did not turn a hair or bat an eye, but waited for Wally to run out of breath.
From Fore! by Loan, Charles Emmett Van
She thought to cover Don Carlos with confusion, but he did not turn a hair.
From Bandit Love by Savage, Juanita
In the court she did not turn a hair, though Biddy stood ready with a battery of traditional restoratives in case she faltered.
From The Tragic Bride by Young, Francis Brett
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.
