near miss

noun

noun: near miss; plural noun: near misses

    1. a narrowly avoided collision or other accident.
    "she had a near miss when her horse was nearly sucked into a dyke"

    2.   a bomb or shot that just misses its target.
    "he had escaped more than twenty near misses"

In no definition is "near miss" a hit, even taking it "literally" near is adjective for the noun miss, so it is a miss that is near. i.e, a miss where two bodies are close but don't hit.

It's one of those expressions that means the opposite of what you'd think if it was the first time you came across it. Like "could care less".

"could care less" only exists out of misappropriation of the original idiom though, which is "couldn't care less" - a phrase which makes far more sense.

But it's used in the sense "too close and not within acceptable margins". It's not a collision, but one might just as well think of it as a "hit" - someone messed up.

In any definition, a near miss is a hit. A "near hit" would be what you're looking for...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKdvTecYAM

"Near miss" isn't "nearly a miss" - it's a miss where both parties were near each other. "Near hit" may actually make more logical sense though.

Not in any definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_miss_%28safety%29

"near miss" just means "that was close", or "we almost didn't miss" -- in other words, "we missed, but we were pretty damn close and could have collided".

It doesn't mean "nearly missed, but actually hit" -- check any dictionary.

Reminds me of a trick question my late father used to ask us as kids: "would you rather be nearly saved or nearly drowned?"