English · Idiom Candidate

by an eyelash

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

by a very small margin

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

bằng khoảng cách rất nhỏ

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: measured by the length of an eyelash

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She won the race by an eyelash.

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “by an eyelash” mean?

by a very small margin Literally: measured by the length of an eyelash

Is “by an eyelash” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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