brush with
Synonyms
Examples
A brush with death always helps us to live our lives better.
If you've ever had a brush with cancer, you're always thinking a pain might be something serious.
A powerful critical talent who destroyed his own sense of proportion, Leavis was our brush with totalitarianism: we caught it as a mild fever instead of the full attack of meningitis. His career was the clearest possible proof that the course the arts take is not under the control of criticism.
Sleep is no longer a healing bath, a recuperation of vital forces, but an oblivion, a nightly brush with annihilation.
Having been through the muck and mire, I've had my own brush with bad choices.