hairy
/ˈhɛːri
/adjective (hairier, hairiest)
1Covered with hair: a hairy chest...
- The sweet-looking, big-eyed Stevie is now hairy and muscular, covered in tattoos, and boasts a long rap sheet.
- All around the pedestal, black tentacles grew of the mist, thick and hairy, their undersides covered with tiny snapping jaws.
- Plant surfaces have a wide range of textures: they may be smooth, hairy, and covered with waxes or with moist secretions.
Synonyms
hirsute, shaggy, bushy, hair-covered, long-haired;
woolly, furry, fleecy, fuzzy;
bearded, unshaven, unshorn, bewhiskered, stubbly, bristly
technical pilose, pileous, pappose
rare crinite, crinigerous
1.1Having a rough feel or appearance suggestive of coarse hair: a hairy tweed coat and skirt...
- Her rough, slightly hairy skin bristles beneath my touch.
- The thick, hairy appearance of the spider's pedipalps - its frontmost appendages - indicated it was a male.
- He shuddered and pushed himself lower among the rough, hairy blankets.
2 informal Alarming and difficult: we drove up yet another hairy mountain road...
- Eventually (due to a massive diversion along some hairy country roads, and some cows crossing) we arrive at our destination.
- Bumper to bumper we proceeded, the road narrowed and things became hairy.
- Avoiding the cab tout trap, we take a short and hairy bus ride.
Synonyms
risky, unsafe, dangerous, perilous, hazardous, high-risk, touch-and-go, fraught with danger;
tricky, ticklish, difficult, awkward, uncertain, unpredictable, precarious;
Scottish unchancy
informal chancy, dicey, sticky, iffy
British informal dodgy
North American informal gnarly
archaic or humorous parlous
Phrases
give someone the hairy eyeball
Derivatives
hairily
- The cars, loaded to road-scraping lowness under stacked roof-racks, overtook us hairily.
- She makes him a hugely, hairily captivating figure, but the personification of the monk as a beautiful woman adds a gratuitous erotic element.
- Far worse was being confronted with a live specimen, which sat hairily and heavily on my palm.
hairiness
/ noun ...- As a young man I observed extreme hairiness on older people (mainly men) but didn't realise it might happen to me in time.
- It's surprising how many people are unaccustomed to hairiness.
- A full description makes you take things more slowly: count stamens, measure sepals, check smoothness or hairiness and so on.
Rhymes
- Washington, Bushrod
- Washington, Denzel
- Washington, George
- Washingtonian
- Washington Monument
- Washington, Mount
- Washingtonologist
- Washington Square
- washing-up
- washi tape
- Washita River
- washland
- wash leather
- wash one's dirty linen (or laundry) in public
- wash one's hands
- wash one's hands of
- wash one's mouth out (with soap and water)
- washout
- wash out (or wash someone out)
- wash over
- washrag
- wash, rinse, repeat
- washroom
- wash something down
- wash something out