neck and neck

neck and neck

English

Adjective

neck and neck (not comparable)

1. very close in progress, as in a race or contest

   The polls suggest that the candidates were neck and neck in the election.

   • 1779, Charles Macklin, Love à-la-mode, etc., page 20:

     It lay between me and Dick Riot madam; we were neck and neck for three miles, as hard as we could lay leg to ground, and running every inch, but at the first, I felt for him, found I had the foot […]

   • 1825 November, “Sporting Intelligence”, in Sporting Magazine, number 98, page 45:

     Mr. Prendergast's Rainbow filly, watched closely by Paul Jones, took the lead, and they ran almost neck and neck until near the cords, when Paul Jones made a rush, and came home by a length.

   Synonym: nip and tuck

Translations

very close in progress

Chinese: Mandarin: 并驾齐驱 (zh) Dutch: nek aan nek Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Finnish: rinta rinnan French: coude à coude (fr) German: Kopf an Kopf

Hungarian: fej fej mellett Irish: gob ar ghob, gob le gob Korean: 막상막하 (ko) (maksangmakha) Portuguese: pau a pau (pt) (Brazil) Russian: ноздря́ в ноздрю (nozdrjá v nozdrju), вро́вень (ru) (vróvenʹ) Spanish: cabeza a cabeza Telugu: పోటా పోటీ (pōṭā pōṭī), నువ్వా నేనా (nuvvā nēnā)

See also

• dead heat
• photo finish