Word.ws English Dictionary

neck and neck

neck and neck phrase: very close in progress, as in a race or a contest.

Phrase

neck and neck

  1. (idiomatic) Very close in progress, as in a race or a contest.
    • The polls suggest that the candidates were neck and neck in the election.
    • 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 […]1779, Charles Macklin, Love à-la-mode, etc., page 20
    Synonyms:
    nip and tuck

neck and neck meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

neck and neck in Tamil

ஒரே அளவிலான, ஒரே நிலையான

neck and neck in Urdu

پہلو با پہلو

neck and neck in Telugu

very close in progress
పోటా పోటీ pōṭā pōṭī, నువ్వా నేనా nuvvā nēnā

neck and neck in Malayalam

equal, level, tied
ഇഞ്ചോടിഞ്ചായ, ഒരേനിലയിൽ, ഒപ്പത്തിനൊപ്പം, സമംസമം, കട്ടക്കട്ടെയുള്ള, നിരപ്പ്

Synonyms of neck and neck

Forms of neck and neck

alternative formneck-and-neck
alternative formneck in neck

Origin of neck and neck

Figurative, from the image of competing horses abreast in a horse race who are so even (headed for a tie) that their necks are side-by-side.

Questions about neck and neck

What does neck and neck mean?
Neck and neck means very close in progress, as in a race or a contest.
What is neck and neck in Tamil?
Neck and neck in Tamil is ஒரே அளவிலான, ஒரே நிலையான. See Neck and neck meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is neck and neck?
Neck and neck is a phrase.

Words near neck and neck in the dictionary

  1. Nechtan
  2. necitumumab
  3. neck
  4. neck and crop
  5. neck and heels
  6. neck and neck
  7. neck badge
  8. neck bearing
  9. neck bearings
  10. neck brace
  11. neck braces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: neck and neck (page history and authors); neck and neck (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); neck and neck (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); neck and neck (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “neck and neck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/neck_and_neck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.