Where does “photo finish” come from?

photo finish (Italian) comes from English photo finish — The finish of a race in which the leaders are so close together that the winner cannot be identified using the naked eye but is determined by means of a photograph.

Ancestry of “photo finish”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Englishphoto finishThe finish of a race in which the leaders are so close together that the winner cannot be identified using the naked eye but is determined by means of a photograph
Every word from English photo finish