the brink

noun

: the edge at the top of a steep cliff

—usually used figuratively to refer to a point that is very close to the occurrence of something very bad or (less commonly) very good

He nearly lost everything because of his drug addiction, but his friends helped to pull him back from the brink.

The two nations are on the brink of war.

Doctors may be on the brink of finding a cure for this disease.

an animal that has been brought/pulled back from the brink of extinction

Examples of the brink in a Sentence

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China also fears that applying pressure to North Korea, which is already strained by an economic crisis, could push the Kim regime to the brink of regime collapse. —

Sungmin Cho, Foreign Affairs, 12 Nov. 2024 The stakes are high: with every delay, critical ecosystems are pushed closer to the brink. —

David Carlin, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2024 After a packed weekend of closing arguments from both parties in critical swing states, the U.S. now stands on the brink of Election Day, with two very different candidates and two very different positions on a swathe of issues. —

Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 4 Nov. 2024 The agency developed the Shelf-Life Extension Program to do exactly that by batch-testing key medications on the brink of expiring. —

Keren Landman, Vox, 4 Nov. 2024 See all Example Sentences for the brink