hair

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

I

n. mane (see hair); filament;bit, inch (see narrowness, nearness).

II

Body-covering filament

Nouns

1. hair; head of hair, mop, mane, crop of hair, thatch, shock; gray, silver or white hair (see oldness); cowlick, forelock; tresses, locks, ringlet; eyelashes, eyebrows; body hair, underarm hair, chest hair.

2. beard, chin whiskers, facial hair, five o'clock shadow, stubble, three days' growth; down, peach fuzz; full beard, Fu Manchu, imperial beard, dundrearies, Vandyke, Abe Lincoln, whiskers, sideburns, sidelocks, side whiskers, tuft, burnsides, muttonchops, goatee, stubble; mustache, handlebar mustache, walrus mustache. Slang, weepers.

3. wig, wiglet, toupee, peruke, hairpiece, postiche, ramillie, bagwig; fall, switch. Slang, rug, lace curtains, artificial turf.

4.

a. hairstyle, coiffure, hairdo, haircut, permanent wave, set, styling; Afro, artichoke, back combed, bangs, beehive, [coquette or windblown] bob, bouffant, [fishtail or French] braid, brush cut, bun, butch, buzz cut, chignon, coil, conk, cornrows, crew cut, crimp, curls, DA, dreadlocks, ducktail, feathercut, finger wave, flattop, fluff, French knot or twist, fringe, frisette, frizz, fuzz cut, knot, layered cut, lovelock, marcel, mo-hawk, moptop, natural, pageboy, peyes, pigtail, pixie, pompadour, pony-tail, pouf, Prince Valiant, process, psyche knot, queue, quiff, razor cut, roach, shingle, spikes, spit curl, swirl, tail, tonsure, topknot, updo, upsweep, widow's peak. Informal, perm. Slang, grass, naps, moss, cornrolls, conk, B-52, do, duck's ass, burr cut, fade; jarhead, skinhead.

b. hair color, coloring; [natural, strawberry, platinum, peroxide or bleached] blond[e], brunet[te], tortoiseshell, redhead, towhead; blaze, frosting, streaking, tint.

5. pubic hair. Slang, bush, Downshire, fluff, plush, scut.

6. hirsuteness, hairiness, shagginess, furriness, fleeciness, wooliness.

7. (animals) fur, pelt, fleece, coat, mane, camel's hair, horsehair; feeler, antenna; plumage, feathers (see birds).

8. (plants) awn, arista, brush, pile.

9. barber, [hair]stylist, hairdresser, friseur; curler, curling iron, hair dryer, diffuser, hair net, hair spray; hair remover, depilatory.

Verbs — cut, style, perm, coiffure], wave, wash, pleach, tease, braid, corn-row, comb, brush; tint, tone, color, bleach.

Adjectives

1. hairy, hirsute, shaggy, furry, bushy, tufty, fleecy, woolly; bristly (see roughness); crinose, pubescent, ciliate, hispid; clean-cut, close-cropped, ratted, shorn, teased, tousled; bearded, bewhiskered; unshaven, stubbly; goateed; wigged, toupeed. Slang, mossy, kinky, nappy.

2. feathery, downy; tufted, pinnate, feathered, plumed, crested.

Quotations — The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair ( John Milton), Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair (A. E. Housman), Never trust a man who combs his hair straight from the left armpit (Alice Roosevelt Longworth).

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Threadlike growth]

Syn. locks, tresses, wig, moustache, whiskers, eyebrow, eyelash, thatch, sideburn, down, tress, wool, shock, mane, filament, fluff; see also beard , fur .

2. [One threadlike growth]

Syn. whisker, cilium, bristle, vibrissa, striga, villus; see also fiber 1 , thread .

3. [Anything suggesting the thickness of a hair]

Syn. filament, strand, thread, fiber, a hairbreadth, a narrow margin, whisker, nose, hair trigger, hairspring, splinter, shaving, sliver; see also bit 3 .

• get in one's hair*,

Syn. irritate, annoy, disturb; see bother 2 .

• have by the short hairs*,

Syn. have at one's mercy, victimize, have over a barrel*; see defeat 1 .

• let one's hair down*,

Syn. relax, be informal, have fun, let oneself go; see relax 1 .

• make one's hair stand on end,

Syn. terrify, scare, horrify; see frighten 1 .

• split hairs,

Syn. quibble, cavil, nag; see fight 1 .

• to a hair,

Syn. precisely, perfectly, right in every detail; see exactly .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

locks, mane, tress, down, *mop, fur, strand, tuft, curls, fuzz, fringe, bristle, whiskers. ''The only thing that will really prevent baldness.''—Drew Berkowitz.

WORD FIND

• African-American, puffy, 1960s, 1970s: Afro

• arrange: coif, set, style, perm

• auburn dye: henna

• back comb: tease

• bald crown surrounded by ring of fringe: tonsure

• bald: glabrous

• baldness, common: male pattern baldness

• band: filet, snood

• beehive-like style of 1950s, 1960s: beehive

• bowl-like: Beatle cut, *Moe

• braided rows close to head: cornrows

• braid: plait, cue, cueue, pigtail, tress, fishbone braid, French braid

• colors: ash, ash blond, auburn, black, bleach blond, blond, blue-gray, brown, brunet, carrot, chestnut, cinnamon, coal black, cocoa, copper, dusky, fair-haired, fiery, flaxen, frosted, ginger, golden, gray, grizzled, hoary, honey, jet-black, nutbrown, nutmeg, peroxide blond, platinum blond, polished wood, premature gray, raven, russet, rust, sable, salt and pepper, silver, snowy, strawberry blond, tawny, technicolor (dyed, punk), titian, towheaded, violent red, washed out, white

• curl: ringlet, corkscrew

• curled-ends style with bangs: flip

• curl pressed against face with saliva: spit curl

• curly like a poodle: poodle cut

• cut short: crop

• Dorothy Hamill style of 1970s: wedge

• ducktail-like style of 1950s: ducktail

• fake: toupee, *rug, wig, implant

• forehead fringe: bangs

• graying, premature: poliosis

• hairy, abnormally: hirsute, hirsutism

• high sweep of hair combed back from forehead: pompadour

• Jamaican braids: dreadlocks, Rastafarian dreadlocks, dreads

• knot: chignon, bob, bun

• mass, tangled or bushy: shock

• matted, tangled hairs: elflocks

• neck hairs: hackles

• point of hair tapering to forehead: widow’s peak

• puffed-out mass, style: bouffant

• punk: mohawk, porcupine, spiked, shaved, dyed

• remove: epilate, depilate, bob

• remover: depilatory, electrolysis

• roll: bun, chignon shaved trails in a slanted or sculpted buzz

• cut: *fade, *gumby

• short haircut for men: buzz, flattop, crew cut, butch, *fade

• short haircut for women: bob

• short on sides, nearly shoulder-length in back: mullet

• standing cone ending in ponytail: empire cone

• stick-up tuft: cowlick

• straight-cut style with bangs: page boy

• textures: billowing, bouncy, bristly, bushy, coarse, cornsilk, crimped, crinkly, dollish, downy, eiderdown, fine (baby fine), fleecy, flowing, flyaway, frazzled, frizzy, fuzzy, greasy, kinky, knotted, lacquered, listless, lustrous, luxurious, matted, nappy, oily, rat’s nest, rigid, ropey, satiny, shaggy, shocked, silky, snarled, stringy (like twine), thatched, wispy, withered, wizened, woolly.

• waves style: marcel

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun A slight amount or indication: breath, dash, ghost, hint, intimation, semblance, shade, shadow, soupgon, streak, suggestion, suspicion, taste, tinge, touch, trace, whiff, whisper. Informal: whisker. See BIG, SHOW.