หวุดหวิด

Explanation

The central image is of being right on the boundary between two opposite outcomes: safety and danger, success and failure, or victory and defeat. It suggests that there was virtually no margin for error. It commonly follows a verb, often in the form อย่างหวุดหวิด. Frequent combinations include รอดอย่างหวุดหวิด (“narrowly escape”), ชนะอย่างหวุดหวิด (“win by a narrow margin”), and สอบผ่านอย่างหวุดหวิด (“barely pass an exam”). Both escaping danger and just managing to win or pass share the same core idea: the opposite outcome was only a hair's breadth away.

Usage

Used when someone narrowly survives an accident or disaster, escapes at the last moment, barely passes an exam, or wins a game or election by a very small margin. It is natural in everyday conversation as well as news reports about accidents, sports, and politics.

Caution

Unlike เกือบ, which normally presents an event as having almost happened, หวุดหวิด usually modifies the result that was actually achieved, such as escaping, winning, or passing. Use it when the opposite outcome was a real and immediate possibility, not merely to say that something occurred close to a deadline.

1 narrowly synonyms

• จวนเจียน

  จวนเจียน describes being on the verge of something happening. หวุดหวิด is especially natural when describing a completed outcome that was decided by a hair's breadth.

• เกือบ

  kʉ̀ap almost (did something)

  เกือบ means “almost” and focuses on an event that came close to happening but did not. หวุดหวิด emphasizes that the actual outcome—such as escaping, passing, or winning—was secured with almost no margin.

• เฉียด

  chìat approach (a numerical threshold)

  เฉียด can describe physically passing very close to something as well as narrowly missing danger. หวุดหวิด centers on an outcome that was achieved, or a bad result avoided, by the narrowest margin.