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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Michael Jordan, 1988 Jordan pushed fellow Hall of Fame wing Dominique Wilkins to the brink in a controversial 1988 Slam Dunk Contest competition, on his Chicago Bulls' then-home floor, Chicago Stadium. —

Josh Hammer, Newsweek, 14 Feb. 2025 Du Maurier makes good use of many of the usual tropes of the Gothic genre, especially uncanny doubling: Relentlessly and unfavorably compared to the Manderley estate’s bewitching former mistress, the nameless narrator is pushed to the brink of sanity by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. —

M.l. Rio, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2025 Final Draft is billed as Netflix’s first survival reality series and will feature former professional athletes, who seek to knock the others out of the game by competing in a series of near-impossible competitions that take them to the brink. —

Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 12 Feb. 2025 British rule saw Bengal tigers hunted nearly to the brink of extinction. —

Sophie Friedman, AFAR Media, 12 Feb. 2025 See all Example Sentences for the brink