hair » hare

Chiefly in:   a hare's breadth

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • This weekend, the WireX research team entered an Immunix server into the DefCon Capture the Flag games, in which each of the teams try to hack each other’s servers, while simultaneously defending their own server. The executive summary is that we placed 2nd, coming withing a hare’s breadth of winning the contest, and the Immunix server was never captured. (link)
  • The notion that a computer program can be arbitrarily classified as a “munition” and thus fall under export control is a slippery slope. It’s only a hare’s breadth from the notion that these “munitions” should entail mandatory registration and “7 day waiting periods” and ultimately be banned entirely from domestic use. It’ll all start with populist phrases like: “protect the children from child pornography” and “only drug dealers and mobsters have secrets to hide from us” (link)
  • Johnno and Rowie fly through a heavy storm and the pilot has difficulty keeping the plane in the air. The realisation that they have escaped death by a hare’s breadth makes Johnno think about his future and the values in his life. (link)
  • Delightful classic transports young readers to the timeless world of the Green Forest, where Peter discovers the folly of changing his name, outwits the ever-hungry Reddy Fox, manages a number of hare’s-breadth escapes, and makes an ill-advised decision to hibernate. (Home School Source, book summary)

This is rarer than the more creative hare’s breath, and more often used for jocular effect.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/09 |

Commentaries

  1. 1

    Commentary by Fred Roth , 2005/11/08 at 7:48 pm

    hair>>hare
    Among fly fishermen, a popular fly pattern is called the hare’s ear, since it is made from fur from a rabbit’s ear. This is often eggcorned into “hairs ear,” which makes a certain amount of sense.
    (link [The flyshop advertised in this link also sells a “purple leach” fly])

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