Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
near miss
Logical quibbles insisting that this locution really means “near hit” show no sign of unseating this Standard idiom. It means “a close call” as distinguished from a miss that never truly threatened to hit at all. It’s used especially of airplanes that nearly collide and of all sorts of shooting results, and you should be aware that some stylebooks now insist on near collision or something similar.
