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Origin documented
“A miss is as good as a mile”
What it means
A narrow failure is still a failure.
Where it comes from
The point is the gulf between the units. An inch and a mile are equally not a hit, and the phrase insists that near misses earn no credit.
How sure are we?
The earlier full form was "an inch in a miss is as good as an ell", recorded in the eighteenth century and shortened over time until the wordplay was lost entirely.