close, but no cigar

8.6

Nearly succeeding but failing at the last moment

idiom

Informal

: cerca, pero no

He came in second place in the race—close, but no cigar.

Examples

You were close, but no cigar on that last question!
They almost made the playoffs this year; close, but no cigar.
Her answer in the quiz was very nearly correct—close, but no cigar.
Almost got it right! Close, but no cigar.
He came in second place in the race—close, but no cigar.
Her answer in the quiz was very nearly correct—close, but no cigar.
They almost made the playoffs this year; close, but no cigar.

Synonyms

to come close

vsclose, but no cigar

51 2.8

To nearly do or experience something but fail to do it

implies failing at the final moment despite near success

Antonyms

success

∞ 1.0

Getting what you want after working hard

Surface Forms

close, but no cigar main

Morphology

close, + but + no + cigar

The literal parts ('close' + 'but' + 'no' + 'cigar') do not logically compose to 'almost succeeded but failed' — 'no cigar' refers idiomatically to not winning a prize and this link is culturally specific rather than predictable from the words. A B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the idiomatic sense without prior exposure or cultural knowledge.

Etymology

Close, but no cigar comes from old fair games where a cigar was the prize. If someone almost won, the caller would say 'no cigar', so the phrase now means 'almost succeeded but failed'.