Definition of "near miss" []

• A narrowly avoided collision involving two or more aircraft, ships, boats, or motor vehicles. (noun)
• A missile strike that is extremely close to but not directly on target. (noun)
• Something that fails by a very narrow margin: Her campaign for the Senate was a near miss. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The story had everything: eccentric outsiders, mysterious technology, eye-kicking shots of the wild, even a near miss with a mag-lev train."
• "Another shuttle near miss occurred on STS-112 when a circuit failure resulted in only one set of the hold-down bolt initiators firing at liftoff."
• "Then Killeen noticed a small dark patch on Waugh's boot, a flaw perhaps struck by a near miss during the attack."