“By the Skin of Your Teeth”
Indiana Jones from Raiders of the Lost Ark
💭 Meaning
“By the skin of your teeth” is to barely succeed at something or narrowly escape a bad outcome, i.e., accomplishing something with the smallest possible margin.
✍️ Examples
Henry's student submitted her application by the skin of her teeth, just minutes before the portal closed.
The scholarship committee approved the appeal by the skin of its teeth, with one dissenting vote.
Henry made it to his speaking engagement at the conference by the skin of his teeth after his flight was delayed for hours.
📜 Origin
The phrase comes from the Bible, specifically the Book of Job (19:20), where Job laments his suffering, saying he has escaped “with the skin of my teeth," a phrase meant to emphasize an impossibly thin margin, since teeth have no “skin" at all. The phrase entered the English language through the 1611 King James Bible translation and gradually became a common idiom for narrowly avoiding failure or disaster, precisely because it evokes something so minimal it's essentially nonexistent.
