By the skin of one's teeth
Meaning
To succeed or escape by the narrowest possible margin, almost failing completely.
Origin
The phrase plunges us back into the ancient world of the Book of Job, where a man of immense faith is stripped of everything—family, wealth, and health—and left in utter despair. In chapter 19, verse 20, Job cries out in his agony, describing his emaciated state with the poignant line, "My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth." This striking image, brought powerfully into the English language by the 1611 King James Bible translation, depicted a survival so close to annihilation that only the thinnest, most inconsequential part of him remained. It captured the essence of near-total loss and miraculous, bare-minimum endurance, making it a vivid and enduring metaphor for a narrow escape.
Examples
- The climber made it to the next ledge by the skin of his teeth, narrowly avoiding a long fall into the chasm below.
- We finished the project on time by the skin of our teeth after pulling an all-nighter and dealing with a last-minute technical glitch.