WordNet
n. a very small distance or space; "they escaped by a hair's-breadth"; "they lost the election by a whisker" [syn: hairsbreadth, hair, whisker]
Usage examples of "hair's-breadth".
J'ai vecu, as I apprehend most of us manage to exist, missing all along the varied forms of destruction by a hair's-breadth, saving my body, that's clear, and perhaps my soul also, but not without some damage here and there to the fine edge of my conscience, that heirloom of the ages, of the race, of the group, of the family, colourable and plastic, fashioned by the words, the looks, the acts, and even by the silences and abstentions surrounding one's childhood.
Don't think I ever deviated so much as a hair's-breadth from the course that was scientifically and humanistically right.
Immediately, the telegraphs jangled, the water boiled whitely at the Sirrus's stern-shocked realisation of its imminence and death itself must have been only a merciful hair's-breadth apart for the unfortunate man in the water, and then the destroyer was clear, sheering sharply away from the Electra.