Hairy

How to spell hairy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hairy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hairy mean?

1. adjectiveCovered with or having a lot of hair.
2. adjectiveInformally, alarming, dangerous, or difficult to deal with.

Hairy in a sentence

• The dog left hairy tufts all over the sofa.

• The drive down the icy mountain road got pretty hairy near the top.

• He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a thick, hairy forearm.

• The final stage of the merger turned hairy when the funding fell through.

Where does hairy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows directly from the Old English noun 'hær' (also spelled 'hēr'), meaning the fine threads that grow from the skin of people and animals. This was a thoroughly Germanic word, with close relatives in Old Norse 'hár' and Old High German 'hār', all tracing back to a shared ancestor for the same body covering. The adjective 'hairy' was formed by adding the native suffix '-y', which turns a noun into an adjective meaning 'full of' or 'covered with', so it literally meant 'covered with hair'. The familiar 'ai' spelling reflects the long vowel of the old noun rather than the way the word actually sounds today, which is the small trap for writers. From the twentieth century onward 'hairy' also picked up an informal sense meaning 'frightening' or 'dangerously difficult', perhaps from the image of a hair-raising situation.

How the word is built

• hair (Old English hær: hair)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'full of' or 'characterised by')