Meaning
To win by the smallest possible margin. Borrowed from horse racing, where finishing margins are officially described in parts of the horse's body, and a nose is the shortest margin on the scale, narrower than a head, a neck or a length. Now used for any narrow victory in sport, elections or business, with lose by a nose as its common opposite. The negative counterpart lose by a nose is well attested, and nose out extends the image as a transitive verb. Do not conflate with this site's photo finish entry. Regional use: All English-speaking regions.
Origin
From horse racing, where the official margin of victory is expressed in parts of the horse's body, and a nose is the smallest recognized margin. Mental Floss explains the mechanics - the muzzle is the forwardmost point of the horse, so a nineteenth-century finisher that eked out a sliver of a lead literally won by a nose - and its stock illustration is the 1890 match at New York's Sheepshead Bay in which Salvator beat Tenny by a nose. The dating is disputed, and the disagreement is on record in Wikipedia's list of sports idioms: the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms dates the sports usage to about 1900 and the figurative sense to sometime after 1950, while the OED records a literal use in 1851 but cites a figurative use only in 1997, and that in the phrase 'lost by a nose'. Keep this distinct from photo finish, already catalogued here, which is about the finish-line camera rather than the margin.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- lose by a nose
- nose out
Usage Examples
- Our design won by a nose, beating the runner-up on a single tiebreak vote.
- The defending champion won by a nose in a finish too close to call with the naked eye.
- The yes campaign took the referendum by a nose after a recount.