From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbe a near thingbe a near thingBritish English a) JUST/ALMOST NOTif something you succeed in doing is a near thing, you manage to succeed but you nearly failed They won the championship, but it was a near thing. b) JUST/ALMOST NOTused to say that you just managed to avoid a dangerous or unpleasant situation That was a near thing – that truck was heading straight for us. → near
Examples from the Corpus
be a near thing• The Cairo Conference was a near thing for her. 