hair

英 [heə]美 [hɛr]
  • n. 头发；毛发；些微
  • vt. 除去…的毛发
  • vi. 生长毛发；形成毛状纤维
  • adj. 毛发的；护理毛发的；用毛发制成的
CET4 TEM4 考研 CET6 中高频词 基本词汇

中文词源

hair 头发，毛发

来自PIE*ghers,挺直，硬毛，词源同horror,hirsute.引申词义毛发，头发。

hair ’s breadth 毫厘之差

比喻用法。

英文词源

hair
hair: [OE] No general Indo-European term for ‘hair’ has come down to us. All the ‘hair’-words in modern European languages are descended from terms for particular types of hair – hair on the head, hair on other parts of the body, animal hair – or for single hairs or hair collectively, and indeed many retain these specialized meanings: French cheveu, for instance, means ‘hair of the head’, whereas poil denotes ‘body hair’ or ‘animal hair’.

In the case of English hair, unfortunately, it is not clear which of these categories originally applied, although some have suggested a connection with Lithuanian serys ‘brush’, which might indicate that the prehistoric ancestor of hair was a ‘bristly’ word. The furthest back in time we can trace it is to West and North Germanic *khǣram, source also of German, Dutch, and Danish haar and Swedish hår.

The slang use of hairy for ‘difficult’ is first recorded in the mid 19th century, in an erudite context that suggests that it may have been inspired by Latin horridus (source of English horrid), which originally meant (of hair) ‘standing on end’. Its current use, in which ‘difficult’ passes into ‘dangerous’, seems to have emerged in the 1960s, and was presumably based on hair-raising, which dates from around 1900.

It is fascinatingly foreshadowed by harsh, which is a derivative of hair and originally meant ‘hairy’.
hair (n.)
Old English hær "hair, a hair," from Proto-Germanic *khæran (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Norse, Old High German har, Old Frisian her, Dutch and German haar "hair"), perhaps from PIE *ghers- "to stand out, to bristle, rise to a point" (cognates: Lithuanian serys "bristle;" see horror).

Spelling influenced by Old Norse har and Old English haire "haircloth," from Old French haire, from Frankish *harja or some other Germanic source (see above). Hair-dye is from 1803. To let one's hair down "become familiar" is first recorded 1850. Homeopathic phrase hair of the dog (that bit you), remedy from the same thing that caused the malady, especially a drink on the morning after a debauch, 1540s in English, is in Pliny.

双语例句

1. She walked forward and embraced him and stroked his tousled white hair.
她走上前拥抱他并轻抚他凌乱的白发。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Applying the dye can be messy, particularly on long hair.
涂抹染发剂可能会搞得一团糟，特别是长发。
来自柯林斯例句
3. His long, uncovered hair flew back in the wind.
他那露在外面的长发随风向后飞舞。
来自柯林斯例句
4. He was a tall, thin man with grey hair.
他是个瘦高个，头发灰白。
来自柯林斯例句
5. He had long unkempt hair and a stubbly chin.
他的头发又长又乱，脸上胡子拉碴。
来自柯林斯例句