hair

/ˈhɛə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈhɛː/

hair noun: a pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals.

Image: subhamshome28, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

hair (countable and uncountable, plural hairs)

(countable, singular, usually) A pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals.
- And draweth new delights with hoary hairs.1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Iune. Ægloga Sexta.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC
- Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 28, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 135
(singular, uncountable, usually) The collection or mass of such growths growing from the skin of humans and animals, and forming a covering for any part or the whole body.
(singular, uncountable, usually) Specifically, the collection of hairs on the top and sides of the human head, growing from the scalp.
- In the western world, women usually have long hair while men usually have short hair.
- Her abundant hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders, clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock that covered them.1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC
Synonyms:

thatch, mop, locks
(countable, singular, usually) A slender outgrowth from the chitinous cuticle of insects, spiders, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. Such hairs are totally unlike those of vertebrates in structure, composition, and mode of growth.
(countable, singular, usually) A cellular outgrowth of the epidermis, consisting of one or of several cells, whether pointed, hooked, knobbed, or stellated.
- Internal hairs occur in the flower stalk of the yellow frog lily (Nuphar).
(countable, singular, usually) Any slender, flexible outgrowth, filament, or fiber growing or projecting from the surface of an object or organism.
- (uncountable, by extension) The collection or mass of such outgrowths, filaments, or fibers growing or projecting from the surface of an object or organism.
(countable, singular, usually) A locking spring or other safety device in the lock of a rifle, etc., capable of being released by a slight pressure on a hair-trigger.
(countable, singular, usually) Any very small distance, or degree; a hairbreadth.
- Just a little louder please—turn that knob a hair to the right.
- I won by a hair.
(singular, slang, uncountable, usually) Complexity; difficulty; the quality of being hairy.
- January 2014, Barack Obama, quoted in "Going the Distance" by David Remnick, in The New Yorker
  Having said all that, those who argue that legalizing marijuana is a panacea and it solves all these social problems I think are probably overstating the case. There is a lot of hair on that policy.

Verb

hair (third-person singular simple present hairs, present participle hairing, simple past and past participle haired)

(singular, transitive, usually) To remove the hair from.
- Now know ye, that in compliance with the said proviso, we the said John Cant and John Millar do hereby declare that our said invention of a new method of tanning leather is described in the manner following : that our method of preparing hides and skins by liming, hairing, fleshing, and baiting, is...1808, The Repertory of Patent Inventions, page 90
- By his method raw hides, after hairing and baiting, are converted into leather in less than thirty hours.1825, American Mechanics' Magazine - Volume 2, page 71
(intransitive, singular, usually) To grow hair (where there was a bald spot).
- He has haired up and healed over.1863, Yankee-notions - Volume 12, page 312
- It has haired over nicely. There are no bad results from it in any way whatever that I can detect.1887, National Stockman and Farmer - Volume 11, page 7
(singular, transitive, usually) To cause to have or bear hair; to provide with hair
- THE following classes of fiber are employed for hairing dolls : human hair, mohair, cross-bred wool, horsehair, hog-bristle, unspun cotton. Human hair is only used for hairing dolls of an extremely expensive class.1937, Dyestuffs - Volume 35, Issue 1, page 1
- So they did three different sculptures and then ran the masks and painted them, haired them, and sent them out to us.2014, Lee Karr, Greg Nicotero, The Making of George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
(singular, usually) To string the bow for a violin.
- The bow is now haired, and all that remains to make it ready for use is to rosin it.1896, Henry Saint-George, The Bow, Its History, Manufacture & Use, page 96
- The tools used for hairing a bow by various reparimen can be unlimited in their selection. A bowmaker has a different attitude toward hairing than a repairman and this I believe reflects the type of the finished job that is done.1969, John Alfred Bolander, Violin bow making, page 105

Proper noun capitalized: Hair

Hair (plural Hairs)

A surname.

hair meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

hair in Hindi

pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of humans and other mammals: बाल bāl, केश keś
mass of such filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals: बाल bāl, लोम lom
mass of such filaments on the human head: बाल bāl, केश keś, जटा jaṭā, वाल vāl, केस kes, चूल cūl

hair in Tamil

pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of humans and other mammals: முடி muṭi
mass of such filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals: முடி muṭi
mass of such filaments on the human head: முடி muṭi

hair in Marathi

pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of humans and other mammals: केस kes
mass of such filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals: केस kes
mass of such filaments on the human head: केस kes

hair in Urdu

mass of such filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals: بال bāl
mass of such filaments on the human head: بال bāl, کیش keś

More languagesFewer languages

hair in Bengali: পশম pośom, চুল cul
hair in Telugu: రోమాలు rōmālu, వెంట్రుకలు veṇṭrukalu, జుట్టు juṭṭu
hair in Malayalam: ചൂളി cūḷi
hair in Kannada: ಕೇಶ kēśa, ಕೂದಲು kūdalu
hair in Punjabi: ਵਾਲ vāl, ਬਾਲ bāl, ਕੇਸ kes
hair in Gujarati: વાળ vāḷ, કેશ keś
hair in Odia: ଲୋମ loma, କେଶ keśa
hair in Sanskrit: केश keśa, वाल vāla
hair in Sinhala: කොඳ koⁿda
hair in Assamese: নোম nüm, চুলি suli
hair in Nepali: कपाल kapāl
hair in Pashto: ویښتان waṣ̌tan, وېښته wex̌tǝ
hair in Tagalog: buhok, bulbol, balahibo
hair in Arabic: شَعْرَة šaʕra, شَعْر šaʕr, شعر šaʕr, شعرة šaʕra
hair in Malay: bulu, rambut
hair in Indonesian: bulu, rambut
hair in Persian: مو mō, مُو mū, گیس gēs
hair in Thai: ขน kǒn, ผม pǒm
hair in Vietnamese: lông, tóc
hair in Myanmar: အမွေး a.mwe:, ဆံပင် hcampang

Examples of hair in a sentence

Now listen to what you've got to do, and this time if you deviate a single hair or try any of your monkey tricks it's the deep end you'll go off at.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
I took 25 hides out of the Lime with Stephens help I haired them and fleshed them1971, Reuben King, Virginia S. Wood, Ralph V. Wood, The Reuben King Journal, 1800-1806, page 49:
The bald patch on his hip was hairing over and he no longer limped.1992, Hugh Ruppersburg, Georgia Voices: Fiction, page 492:
The winter had haired them like llamas, the sleet had worked no hardship, as a horse paws to the grass, and any concern for the outside saddle stock was needless.2017, Andy Adams, Wells Brothers: The Young Cattle Kings:

All 40 example sentences with hair

Synonyms of hair

Forms of hair

Noun
plural	hairs
Verb
third-person singular present	hairs
present participle	hairing
past participle	haired
past	haired
Proper noun
plural	Hairs

Past tense of hair: haired

Plural of hair: hairs

Origin of hair

From Middle English her, heer, hær, from Old English hǣr, from Proto-West Germanic *hār, from Proto-Germanic *hērą (“hair”), from Proto-Indo-European *kes- (“to scrape, comb”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hier, Híer (“hair”), West Frisian hier (“hair”), Cimbrian haar, har (“hair”), Dutch haar (“hair”), German and Low German Haar (“hair”), Luxembourgish Hoer (“hair”), Mòcheno hor (“hair”), Yiddish האָר (hor, “hair”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hår (“hair”), Faroese and Icelandic hár (“hair”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English cheveler, chevelere (“hair”), borrowed from Old French chevelëure (“hair, head-hair, coiffure, wig”). The modern spelling with ai is not a regular representation of the vowel developed from Middle English. Rather, it is from Middle English here (haircloth) influenced by Old French haire.

* As a Scottish Gaelic and Irish surname, from ó héir (“descendant of Ír”), a personal name related to Old Irish sír (“long-lasting”), similar to Hare, O'Hare, Haire. * As an English surname, from the noun hair. * As a Scottish surname, variant of Ayre, Ayer. * As a Dutch and German surname, Americanized from Haar, from haar (“sandy ridge”) (from Proto-Germanic *harugaz) and from the adjective Haar (“hair”).

Phrases with hair

165 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with hair

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hair

What does hair mean?: Hair means a pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals.
What is hair in Hindi?: Hair in Hindi is बाल (bāl), केश (keś), लोम (lom). See Hair meaning in Hindi.
How do you use hair in a sentence?: Now listen to what you've got to do, and this time if you deviate a single hair or try any of your monkey tricks it's the deep end you'll go off at.
What part of speech is hair?: Hair can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hair?: Hair is pronounced /ˈhɛə/ (UK).
What is the plural of hair?: The plural of hair is hairs.

Words near hair in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: hair (page history and authors); Hair (page history and authors); ചൂളി (Malayalam) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-hair.ogg, en-us-hair.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hair.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hair. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.