Skip to main content

Close but no cigar 

When you come close to something but don't quite get there.

Just short of success

This phrase originated in the 1920's. Fair grounds would give cigars away as prizes. Prizes were more aimed at the adults then vs. children like they are now. The fair workers would shout out "close but no cigar".... The first written documentation of this word appeared in the 1930's and then became a common phrase.
You finish second in a race
A friend asks how you did
You tell them "I finished in second place, close but no cigar"
Close but no cigar by BBJ24 June 6, 2015
Related Words

Human Cigarette Butt 

Person who smells like a wet ash tray, has brown stained teeth and a raspy smoker's voice.
Lynn has not been able to get a job because she looks like a human cigarette butt.

going out for cigarettes

A popular euphemism for a parent (usually the Dad) walking out and abandoning their kids/family, where the abandonment takes place under the cover of a harmless, non-suspicious errand like going to get cigarettes.
Last time I was my Dad I was 3; he told us he was going out for cigarettes and he never came back.

Cigarette Abuse 

When a person is smoking a cigarette and then leaves it on the edge of a table or in an ash try while it burns down to the filter.
"Chase you left your cigarette burning on the table! Come on man thats Cigarette Abuse." Smoking, Cigarettes, Smoke, Cigs, Ash Tray
Cigarette Abuse by JCY60! December 8, 2013

Flesh Cigar 

There was an article in the New York Post that claimed Fidel Castro gave the ol' flesh cigar to 35 000 women.
Flesh Cigar by SafeHouse October 12, 2010

cigarette destructor 

Somebody who is a true-blue total cigarette fiend -- that is, somebody who smokes way, way, WAY too many of these things.

"Destructor" because the act of lighting & smoking a cig quite literally destroys it.
Josh is a total cigarette destructor; he can destroy as many as eighty five of the little fuckers in a single day!
cigarette destructor by Telephony February 21, 2013