Evidence status: PLAUSIBLE

It sounds like a line shouted across an old fairground — and cigars really were given away as prizes. But the paper trail leaves just enough of a gap to make the familiar origin story less certain than it first appears.

The Short Answer

“Close, but no cigar” means that someone has almost succeeded but has still missed the prize.

Cigars genuinely were offered as prizes at fairgrounds, shooting galleries and games of skill in the early twentieth century. The phrase itself appears in American print by 1927, and by 1929 a newspaper was explicitly associating it with the cry of a fairground barker.

That makes the traditional explanation highly plausible.

What we do not have is a surviving piece of evidence proving that one particular barker coined the expression at one particular fair.

What We Know

The cigar part of the story is not an invention.

In Robert Machray’s 1902 book The Night Side of London, visitors to a fairground game are described trying to score enough points to win a cigar. A New York newspaper in 1905 also referred to cigars being won at a rifle range.

So cigars were unquestionably used as prizes in games where a contestant might come frustratingly close and still leave empty-handed.

The wording itself appears later.

Research collected by etymologist David Wilton traces “close, but no cigar” to a Yale Daily News headline from 28 May 1927. It appeared again at Princeton in 1928 and in several American publications in 1929.

By December 1929, the Long Island Daily Press used the expression while explicitly evoking the cry of a “knock-’em-down-and-win-a-smoke” fairground barker.

The prize and the saying had therefore become firmly connected by the end of the 1920s.

How It Became a Habit

The expression works because it turns an almost-success into something brutally binary.

You were close.

You still did not win.

And therefore you do not get the cigar.

That rhythm made the phrase useful far beyond fairgrounds. It could describe a missed promotion, a lost match, a nearly correct answer or anything else where effort and proximity counted for less than actually crossing the line.

A memorable appearance in the 1935 film Annie Oakley helped keep the wording in circulation, but printed examples show that the phrase was already established before the film.

The Story Everyone Tells

The standard version is wonderfully visual.

A customer tries a carnival game. Cigars are hanging up as prizes. The player nearly wins, but not quite.

The barker calls after them:

Close — but no cigar.

It is exactly the sort of origin story people remember because every part of the modern expression seems to be sitting there in one scene.

What the Evidence Actually Says

PLAUSIBLE

The fairground explanation has unusually good supporting circumstances.

Cigars as prizes are documented before the phrase appears in print, and by 1929 the phrase was being explicitly connected with a fairground barker.

What remains missing is the final link: evidence showing the expression actually being used by fairground operators before it entered wider slang.

So the sensible conclusion is not that the carnival story is false. It is that it is strongly plausible without being completely proven.

Why It Stuck

“Almost” is emotionally awkward.

We like to imagine that getting very close ought to count for something, but prizes, competitions and decisions often work in absolutes.

“Close, but no cigar” packages that disappointment into six words.

The cigar has mostly vanished from everyday life as a prize.

The near miss has not.

Related Curiosities

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Why Do We Say “Spill the Beans”?

Why Do We Say “Bite the Bullet”?

Sources & Further Reading

David Wilton, Wordorigins.org — “close, but no cigar.” Documents fairground cigar prizes in 1902 and 1905 and printed examples of the phrase from 1927 onwards.

Robert Machray — The Night Side of London, 1902.

Yale Daily News — “Close but No Cigar”, 28 May 1927.

Long Island Daily Press — “Day’s Fund Just Falls Short of Reaching $200”, 13 December 1929.

Oxford English Dictionary — cigar, n., additional sense.

Last checked: 22 September 2026