different between hairsbreadth vs smidgen

English

Alternative forms

• hairbreadth
• hair's breadth

Etymology

From hair +? -s- +? breadth.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?h???zb??d?/
• Hyphenation: hairs?breadth

Noun

hairsbreadth (plural hairsbreadths)

1. A very short distance or a very small amount (as is the width of a hair).
   • 1919, John Buchan, Mr. Standfast:

     We've missed our shot by a hairsbreadth and that's the same as missing by miles.

   • 2010 March, Neil McDonald, Quadrant, Quadrant Magazine Limited, volume LIV, number 3 (number 464 overall), page 100:

     In Avatar the spectacular rides to the rescue and hairsbreadth escapes have the whole film behind them and because of that are dramatically and emotionally satisfying.

Derived terms

• to a hair's breadth

Anagrams

• hairbreadths

English

Alternative forms

• smidge, smidgeon, smidget, smidgin

Etymology

Likely based on a variant of smeddum (“fine powder”), influenced by Scots smitch (“stain, speck”). Confer Northumbrian dialectal English smiddum (“small particle of lead ore; smitham”). Scots smitch may derive from an unattested synonym of Old English sm?tan (“to daub, smear, smudge”): *sm?cgan (“to soil, stain, taint, blacken”). If so, then cognate with smudge.

Alternate etymology connects smidgeon with Scottish Gaelic smidin (“small syllable”), though this is highly improbable considering the implied semantic shift that would have to have occurred.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sm?d???n/
• Rhymes: -?d??n, -?d??n

Noun

smidgen (plural smidgens)

1. A very small quantity or amount.

   Synonyms: hair's breadth; see also Thesaurus:modicum

Usage notes

Some cookbooks and manufacturers of kitchen measurement sets have attempted to define a smidgen for recipes. Anything between ¹?₂₅ and ¹?₄₈ of a teaspoon may be found, ¹?₃₂ being perhaps the most commonly used. Other commonly used measures for small amounts include tad, dash, pinch, and drop. There seems to be some consensus of tad being the largest in this set and a smidgen being larger than a drop but smaller than a pinch.

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Demings, Dengism