as in narrow escapes
a barely successful escape from something undesirable
a near miss with death prompted him to give up skydiving
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Recent Examples of near misses
After years of near misses and heartbreak, the Englishman finally broke through with a dramatic win at the Tour Championship, pocketing a $10 million prize.
—
Devlina Sarkar, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Sep. 2025
While Cameroon will reflect on the near misses of a fourth-place finish, Yves Missi’s journey is just beginning.
—Sindiswa Mabunda, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
In the decade that followed, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and near misses continued.
—Guy Fedorkow, IEEE Spectrum, 2 June 2025
Devlina Sarkar, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Sep. 2025
While Cameroon will reflect on the near misses of a fourth-place finish, Yves Missi’s journey is just beginning.
—Sindiswa Mabunda, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
In the decade that followed, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and near misses continued.
—Guy Fedorkow, IEEE Spectrum, 2 June 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for near misses
close calls
Noun
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With multiple overtime games, upsets and close calls, Week 2 provided a lot of reasons to shake up this week’s edition of The Athletic 136, just not at the top.—
Chris Vannini,
New York Times,
8 Sep. 2025
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Then again, close calls against FCS teams – and Northern Colorado isn’t a particularly good FCS team – tend to look even worse in hindsight.—
Jon Wilner,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
7 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Near misses.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/near%20misses. Accessed 18 Sep. 2025.
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