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by the skin of one's teeth

Barely; closely; by a narrow margin; with nothing to spare.
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I passed the test by the skin of my teeth.

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Submitted on September 01, 2009

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Nearby phrases

Some more phrases from our dictionary similar to by the skin of one's teeth

carry one's weightbury one's head in the sandcash in one's chipschange one's mindcast one's votecaught with one's pants downcatch one's deathburn one's fingersbust one's ballsbust one's chopsbring one's arse to an anchorby one's lightsbust one's buttchange one's mind

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1 Comment
  • IzzyCohen
    IzzyCohen
    by/with the skin of my teeth.

    This idiom is in the bible at Job 19:20: וָא�
    תְמַלְּטָה, בְּעוֹר שִׁנָּי = and I escaped by the skin of my teeth.

    It means “barely, hardly, with difficulty” because B'3or SHinai (using 3 for the letter aiyin) is a near transliteration of the Hebrew word בְּקוֹשִׁי B'QoSHi at a time when the aiyin had a velar G/K sound. I do not know if this was an existing idiom that Job used or if his words were misunderstood during oral transmission before being written by a later scribe. 
    LikeReply1 year ago

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"by the skin of one's teeth." Phrases.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Nov. 2024. <https://www.phrases.com/phrase/by-the-skin-of-ones-teeth_2729>.

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