Close shave opening negligently on electrical grounding (4,5)
I believe the answer is:
near thing
'close shave' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'opening negligently on electrical grounding' is the wordplay.
'opening' suggests taking the first letters.
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'electrical grounding' becomes 'earthing' (synonyms. I am not sure about the 'electrical' bit.).
The initial letter of 'negligently' is 'n'.
'n'+'earthing'='NEAR THING'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for near thing that I've seen before include "almost an accident" , "Lucky escape" , "Even the short-sighted could plainly see that" , "Almost a nasty incident" , "Narrow escape, close shave" .)