near miss

noun

variants or less commonly near-miss

1

a

: a miss (as with a bomb) close enough to cause damage

b

: something that falls just short of success

2

a

: a near collision (as between aircraft)

b

: close call

Synonyms

• close call
• close shave

Examples of near miss in a Sentence

After years of near misses, the team has finally won a championship.

a near miss with death prompted him to give up skydiving

Recent Examples on the Web

Bryan Bedford faced tough questions in the confirmation hearing, which comes after January's deadly midair collision in Washington and a string of other crashes and near misses since then. —Arkansas Online, 12 June 2025

Beckham, 50, will finally earn his country’s highest honor after years of near misses despite his legendary soccer career and extensive charity work with UNICEF. —Safid Deen, USA Today, 6 June 2025

Like Informatica’s private equity backers, Permira and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Salesforce was left ruing a near miss. —Bloomberg, Mercury News, 4 June 2025

That was the highest percentage of such near misses since 2020, when air traffic dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic. —CBS News, 21 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1940, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for near miss

• abyss
• amiss
• chlamys
• dismiss
• premiss
• remiss
• bis
• bliss
• criss
• dis
• diss
• hiss