by inches

1. 1.

   by a short distance

   “they moved it by inches”

   Synonymslittle by littleby small degrees

Questions about by inches

What does by inches mean?

by inches means "by a short distance".

What is another word for by inches?

Close synonyms include little by little, by small degrees. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is by inches a common word?

by inches is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.