Whenever you barely finish something or miss something, you can use idiomatic Italian expressions a hairliterally for a hair. Some possible English equivalents include skin of teeth or A hair's breadth differencebut more often, we use simple adverbs, e.g. almost, narrowly, almost or only.
a hair
Just/barely/almost
As mentioned before, you can use a hair In a positive situation, you are lucky enough to be able to do something at a critical moment. For example:
I missed the bus unscathed.
I almost missed the bus. / I just caught the bus.
The young man narrowly escaped the earthquake.
The young man narrowly escaped the earthquake.
I almost missed the party. I just got there!
I almost missed the party. I just got there in time!
However, it also appears in many negative sentences, indicating that you almost missed an opportunity.
Lucia almost missed the train.
Lucia just missed the bus.
We lost the game by a hair.
We lost the game, but just lost.
This expression should not be confused with a hairwhich is another way of saying a little (A little bit). you will also hear a little (literally “a bit of hair”).
This apple is a hair bigger than this one.
This apple is a little bigger than this one.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honors in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, fluent in English and Italian, as well as varying degrees of fluency in Japanese, Welsh and French. Originally from Toronto, Heather has lived in several countries, notably Italy for six years. Her main research areas are language acquisition, education and bilingual teaching.
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