Episode 116: By Little Hair!

O mały włos! 

English Phonemes: “oh MAH-wih vwohs”
Literal Translation: By little hair.
Elegant Translation: By a tiny hair.
English Equivalent: By the skin of their teeth.

This phrase is used to describe something as a close call, either in the good or bad sense. The English phrase “by the skin of one’s teeth” is a very close equivalent, though it usually has a connotation to a negative event — which someone narrowly avoided, or scraped by “by the skin of their teeth”. But “o mały włos” can be associated with both positive and negative events.

Fun Fact: Google translates this as phrase as “for little hair” which is a totally fair word-for-word translation, but it didn’t choose the correct preposition definition and so the meaning is completely obscured. Aren’t languages fun?

O = by, about, of, for, concerning, against, over [preposition]
Mały = little, tiny [adj., s. masc. obj. form]
Włos = hair [noun, s. masc. obj. form]

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