hair
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Any of the cylindrical filaments characteristically growing from the epidermis of a mammal.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hehrIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɛɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Any of the cylindrical filaments characteristically growing from the epidermis of a mammal
“There is a hair in my soup.”
countable
A pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals.
uncountable
The collection or mass of such growths growing from the skin of humans and animals, and forming a covering for a part of the head or for any part or the whole body.
countable
Any slender, flexible outgrowth, filament, or fiber growing or projecting from the surface of an object or organism.
A very small distance or space
zoologycountable
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.
verb
intransitive
To grow hair (where there was a bald spot).
To string the bow for a violin.
transitive
To remove the hair from.
transitive
To cause to have or bear hair; to provide with hair
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Any of the cylindrical filaments characteristically growing from the epidermis of a mammal
Used this way, hair is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“There is a hair in my soup.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “hair in …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: hair in …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use hair
- “There is a hair in my soup.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Having or covered with hair.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Having or covered with hair.
Having no hair or fur.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any of several seals lacking external ear flaps and having a stiff hairlike coat with hind limbs reduced to swimming flippers.
Self-sacrificing or austere.
Self-sacrificing or austere.
A decorative hinged clip that girls and women put in their hair to hold it in place.
The narrowest of the spaces used to separate words or letters.
Toiletry consisting of a commercial preparation that is sprayed on the hair to hold it in place.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Care for the hair: the activity of washing or cutting or curling or arranging the hair.
The style in which hair has been cut.
A toiletry for the hair.
Someone who cuts or beautifies hair.
The arrangement of the hair (especially a woman's hair).
A double pronged pin used to hold women's hair in place.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.