Word.ws English Dictionary

against the hair

against the hair prepositional phrase: in a rough and disagreeable manner; against the grain.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (obsolete) In a rough and disagreeable manner; against the grain.
    • He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • But his Army loved him not; all went unwillingly with him, and against the hair.1644, David Hume, The History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, Edinburgh, Part II, p. 248

Questions about against the hair

What does against the hair mean?
Against the hair means in a rough and disagreeable manner; against the grain.
What part of speech is against the hair?
Against the hair is a prepositional phrase.

Words near against the hair in the dictionary

  1. against one's better judgment
  2. against someone's will
  3. against the clock
  4. against the collar
  5. against the grain
  6. against the hair
  7. against the law
  8. against the run of play
  9. against the world
  10. against time
  11. againstand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: against the hair (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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