by a hair's breadth
"by-a-hair-s-breadth" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“by a hair's breadth” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a prep_phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - By a narrow margin.
Corpus desk
Index EN-by-a-hair-s-breadth · by a hair's breadth · English
by a hair's breadth · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 19 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | by a hair's breadth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Prep_phrase |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “by a hair's breadth” in English
Rare enough to double-check
by a hair's breadth is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "By a narrow margin.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for by a hair's breadth, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: See hair's breadth. The correct English form is by a hair's breadth, spelled B-Y- -A- -H-A-I-R-'-S- -B-R-E-A-D-T-H.
Definition
- 1By a narrow margin.
Etymology
See hair's breadth.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.