nearly man

plural nearly men

1. idiomaticinformalA man who fails to achieve the success or status that he might potentially have had.

   Snuggle's is housed in what was once a mid-sixties estate pub, the perfect place to wind down a life as a nearly man. Suburban mediocrity writ large.

   2011, Clive Gilson, Lorna Howarth, Songs of Bliss

   1 more example

   It was Harris's lot to be a nearly man: a man nearly educated, nearly employed, nearly criminal, but never really toppling the edges to be labelled. He had been nearly married, and lived at this time with a woman who had also seen better days […]

   2000, David Brian Plummer, Lepus: The Story of a Hare, page 42