I. ˈha(a)](ə)r, ˈhe], ]ə noun
( -s )
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English her, heer, hare, heir, hair, from Old English hǣr; akin to Old Frisian hēr hair, Old High German & Old Norse hār, and perhaps to Middle Irish carr ach scurfy, mangy, Lithuanian šerys bristle, Sanskrit kapuc chala hair on the back of the head
1. : a slender threadlike outgrowth of the epidermis of an animal ; especially : one of the usually pigmented filaments that form the characteristic coat of a mammal, contain neither blood vessels nor nerves, and are composed chiefly of elongated and modified epidermal cells covered by a cuticle of flat imbricated cells that produce a rough surface — compare bristle , hair follicle , root , spine
2.
a. : the hairy covering of an animal or of some particular part of him ; specifically : the coating of fairly coarse and relatively straight individual hairs on a human head — distinguished from fur and wool
b. : haircloth
3.
a.
(1) : a minute distance or amount : trifle
won by a hair
(2) : a precise degree : nicety
aligned to a hair
b. : something likened to hair
hairs of fire came up through the busted plates — Saul Bellow
eucalyptus … tossed their purple-black hair of leaves in the air — Eve Langley
4. obsolete : kind , nature , character
the quality and hair of our attempt brooks no division — Shakespeare
5.
a. : a filamentous structure that resembles hair
leaf hair
b. : bow hair
•
- against the hair
- hair of the dog
- in one's hair
- in the hair
- one's hair down
- out of one's hair
[s]hair.jpg[/s] [
hair 1: 1 shaft, 2 sebaceous gland, 3 epidermis, 4 dermis, 5 hair follicle, 6 bulb, 7 papilla
\]
II. verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
transitive verb
1. : to remove hair from
hair a hide
2. : to apply hair to
hair a doll
hair a fiddlestick
: cover with or as if with hair
a thick, white hand … haired over with fine reddish fuzz — William Faulkner
intransitive verb
: to produce hair or something resembling hair
these woods would not hair up — Scientific American