hair's breadth

• hairsbreadth, hairbreadth

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hair's breadth (plural hairs' breadths)

1. (idiomatic) A very small amount or distance.

   hair's-breadth escapes [narrow escapes]

   We won by a hair's breadth.

   He missed me by a hair's breadth when he ran past me yesterday.

   They came within a hair's breadth of contacting electrified water.

   • 1856, [William] Wilkie Collins, “The Yellow Mask”, in After Dark, volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., →OCLC, page 163:

     Measure Maddalena, and measure Minerva, and, from forehead to chin, you won't find a hair's breadth of difference between them.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     "And then at last I see him, and behold, my chance is gone but by a hair's breadth even before I have it, for he is in the very jaws of death, whence no power of mine can draw him."

• by a hair's breadth

• to a hair

• hairbreadths