Close call 🚪📞
Meaning
An incident where danger or disaster was narrowly avoided.
Origin
Imagine a horse race, neck and neck down to the wire. The photo finish shows one horse's nose just a hair ahead of the other. That's a 'close call' – a situation where the outcome was uncertain until the very last moment, where victory or defeat hung by the thinnest of margins. This idea, of a race or contest decided by the smallest difference, is the heart of the phrase. It quickly leaped from the racetrack to describe any situation where disaster was avoided by a whisker, a moment of uncertainty with a fortunate resolution.
Close call represented with emoji🚪📞
This playful pairing of a door and a telephone invites us to consider the near misses in life. It functions as a whimsical reminder that sometimes, the biggest threats are the ones we just barely escape, a delightful dance between connection and consequence.
Examples
- That was a close call; I almost dropped the whole cake.
- Missing the train by only thirty seconds was a close call, but we made it.
- The squirrel's sudden dash in front of the car was a close call indeed, but the brakes held true.
- My hat nearly flew off into the giant's soup, but I grabbed it just in time – a truly close call for my lunch aspirations.
Frequently asked questions
While it sounds literal, 'close call' is considered an idiom. The phrase extends the idea of a narrowly decided race to any situation where danger is narrowly averted, without necessarily involving any physical proximity or a literal 'call'.
A good opposite for 'close call' would be a 'sure thing' or a 'disaster averted'. A 'sure thing' implies an outcome that was never in doubt, contrasting with the uncertainty of a close call, while 'disaster averted' emphasizes the lack of danger, the opposite of narrowly avoiding it.
No, while the most common usage of 'close call' involves narrowly avoiding danger or disaster, the term can be used more broadly for any situation where the outcome was uncertain and could have gone either way. For example, a narrowly missed deadline or a competition won by a tiny margin could also be called a close call.
Yes, 'close call' can definitely be used humorously to exaggerate a minor inconvenience or a situation that wasn't actually dangerous. This is often done to make light of a slightly awkward moment or a minor mistake that was luckily rectified.