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Usually the phrase is "Won by a nose", referring to horse races. The winner in a horse race is determined by which horse gets part of the body over the finish line first (which will almost always be his nose). When a race is so close that the lead horse is only ahead by a few inches, this is called "winning by a nose" because the lead horse was about a horses-nose-length ahead of the second horse. This is also where we get "photo finish", where the still-frame photograph was necessary to know which nose actually crossed the finish line first.

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16y ago

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