In this mini episode, you will learn the idiom “by the skin of your teeth.
Episode 393 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the idiom “by the skin of your teeth.” Send your questions about English and your comments and suggestions to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hi! This is Nitun here, from Bangladesh. You are listening to Everybody ESL. Enjoy.”
Welcome to episode 393 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I am going to teach you a very strange English idiom. The idiom is “by the skin of your teeth.” By the skin of your teeth. That’s by, b-y, the, skin, s-k-i-n, of, your, teeth, t-e-e-t-h. By the skin of your teeth.
What could this mean? By the skin of your teeth. When do we use this expression? What does it mean?
“By the skin of your teeth” means just barely. Or by a very small amount.
We use it when we are describing somebody who succeeds by a very small amount. Somebody who almost fails. They succeeded—or they won something, or they managed to do something difficult—by a small amount, only a small amount.
For instance, let’s say that you have taken an important exam. Later, after you get your grade back—after you find out how you did on this exam—your friend asks you, “Well, did you pass the exam?” Now, you did pass the exam, but you almost failed. Let’s say that if you had gotten ten questions wrong, you would have failed. But you only got nine questions wrong, so you passed. You didn’t pass by very much. You passed by only a little bit. So you could say, “I passed by the skin of my teeth.” By the skin of my teeth. In other words, “I passed the exam, but only barely. I almost did not pass the exam. I succeeded, but only by a very little bit. Only by a small margin.”
Or let’s say you are hurrying to the airport. Your flight is going to leave soon. You are rushing to get to the airport in time. And you are lucky: you do get to the airport on time, and you get to the gate, and you get on your plane just in time. If you had been one minute later, you would not have gotten on the plane. But you did get on the plane.
You could say, “I made it on my flight by the skin of my teeth. I made it, or I succeeded, by the skin of my teeth. I almost failed. I almost did not succeed. But I did succeed. I did it by the skin of my teeth.”
And that is “by the skin of your teeth.” (Or “by the skin of my teeth, the skin of his teeth, the skin of her teeth.”) This is an interesting idiom that I think you should know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 393 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Nitun recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode. And until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!