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Glite Dictionary
🐱 A long facial hair 📏 A tiny amount 🔌 A metal filament
whisker

whisker

3 5.3
A very small amount or distance
  • noun
  • /ˈwɪskər/
  • Informal
translation icon : por un pelo
  • Ali came within a whisker of beating Austin at the Dubai Duty Free Grand Prix the year before.
  • came within a whisker
  • just a whisker
  • only a whisker

And I got millions of more votes on that and lost by a whisker.

Examples

  • Lloyd quickly veers back into his lane and avoids tragedy by a whisker.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • The man came within a whisker of changing England forever.

  • Ease off just a whisker.

    Dark Tide (2012)

  • Missing the bunny by a whisker.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Murray came within a whisker of having his season end because of ligament damage to his foot.

    Blog text (32)

  • In 1962, UCLA came within a whisker of winning a national championship.

    Academic text (2010)

  • As such, conventional wisdom says the incumbent is going to be re-elected by a whisker.

    Blog text (11)

  • The football match was decided by a whisker, with the final score being 1-0.

  • She was just a whisker away from finishing the race, but she tripped before the finish line.

  • The election results were so close that the winner only had a whisker of a margin over the runner-up.

Synonyms

hair
vswhisker
  • Informal
30 4.7

A very small amount showing how close something was to happening

covers any very small distance or amount beyond just close events
whit
vswhisker
  • Archaic
9 8.6

A very small amount of something

denotes a very small distance or narrow margin rather than mere quantity
hair's breadth
vswhisker
  • Informal
3 5.6

A very small distance or amount

is a general term for any very small amount or distance
hairbreadth
vswhisker
  • Informal
1 6.3

A very small distance in a close call

applies broadly to any very small amount or margin
hairsbreadth
vswhisker
  • Informal
1 6.9

A very small distance about as wide as a hair

is used figuratively for a narrow margin or small amount

Antonyms

abundance
91 3.3

A large amount of something, more than you need

Compounds

whisker jack
  • US
9.9

A bold jay from northern North America with a black cap that steals food

How Close

hair's breadth
  • Informal
3 5.6
whisker
  • Informal
3 5.3
just
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

whisker singular
whiskers plural

Morphology

whisker = whisk (semi-transparent) = whisk + er

The narrow-margin sense is a metaphorical extension from a single hair's width, so the connection is understandable but not fully literal.

Etymology

A helpful way to remember whisker meaning a very small amount is to think of a single tiny face hair; to win 'by a whisker' is to win 'by a hair', that is, by a very small distance.