
adj., -i·er, -i·est.
- Covered with hair or hairlike projections: a hairy caterpillar.
- Consisting of or resembling hair: a hairy overcoat.
- Slang. Fraught with difficulties; hazardous: a hairy escape; hairy problems.
On this page

|
Featured Videos:
|
Roget's Thesaurus:
hairy |
adjective
Antonyms by Answers.com:
hairy |
Definition: dangerous
Antonyms: calm, safe
adj
Definition: having much hair
Antonyms: bald, balding, clean, hairless, short-haired
The Jargon File's Guide to Hacker Slang:
hairy |
1. Annoyingly complicated. “DWIM is incredibly hairy.”
2. Incomprehensible. “DWIM is incredibly hairy.”
3. Of people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/or incomprehensible. Hard to explain except in context: “He knows this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry about.” See also hirsute.
There is a theorem in simplicial homology theory which states that any continuous tangent field on a 2-sphere is null at least in a point. Mathematically literate hackers tend to associate the term ‘hairy’ with the informal version of this theorem; “You can't comb a hairy ball smooth.” (Previous versions of this entry associating the above informal statement with the Brouwer fixed-point theorem were incorrect.)
The adjective ‘long-haired’ is well-attested to have been in slang use among scientists and engineers during the early 1950s; it was equivalent to modern hairy senses 1 and 2, and was very likely ancestral to the hackish use. In fact the noun ‘long-hair’ was at the time used to describe a person satisfying sense 3. Both senses probably passed out of use when long hair was adopted as a signature trait by the 1960s counterculture, leaving hackish hairy as a sort of stunted mutant relic.
In British mainstream use, “hairy” means “dangerous”, and consequently, in British programming terms, “hairy” may be used to denote complicated and/or incomprehensible code, but only if that complexity or incomprehesiveness is also considered dangerous.
Word Tutor:
hairy |
LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!
Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang:
hairy |
| hair, hackie, hackette | |
| hairy eyeball, half, half-arsed |
Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry:
hairy |
| hairpin, haemoglobin, haemo+ | |
| half-boat conformation, half-cell, half-chair conformation |
Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
hairy |
Characterized by a covering of hairs.
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'hairy' |

Translations:
Hairy |
Dansk (Danish)
adj. - håret, behåret, modbydelig, farlig, håragtig, hår-, gammel (om vittighed)
Nederlands (Dutch)
harig, behaard, haarachtig, hachelijk, voortreffelijk
Français (French)
adj. - poilu, velu, chevelu, (Bot) villeux, atroce
Deutsch (German)
adj. - haarig, behaart
Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - μαλλιαρός, τριχωτός, δασύτριχος
Italiano (Italian)
peloso, capelluto
Português (Portuguese)
adj. - peludo, cabeludo, hirsuto
Русский (Russian)
волосатый, волосяной, страшный, опасный, старый, с бородой
Español (Spanish)
adj. - peludo, melenudo
Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - hårig, besvärlig, skräckfylld
中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
多毛的, 长毛的, 毛状的
中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 多毛的, 長毛的, 毛狀的
한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 털이 많은, 등골이 오싹한, 힘드는 , 험한
日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 毛深い, 毛のような, 毛だらけの
العربيه (Arabic)
(صفه) مكسو بالشعر, أشعر كثير الشعر, شعري مصنوع من شعر, فظ, رهيب
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - מכוסה שיער, שעיר
If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.
To select your translation preferences click here.
| hirsute | |
| pilose | |
| dasypygal |
| How hairy is a monkey? Read answer... | |
| Is chupacabras hairy? Read answer... | |
| Why are raspberries hairy? Read answer... |
| What do you say if someone calls you a hairy pickleand you are not hairy or ugly? | |
| What is a hairy covering? | |
| What is a hairy spine? |
Copyrights:
![]() |
![]() | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
![]() |
![]() | Roget's Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
![]() | Antonyms by Answers.com. © 1999-present by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | The Jargon File's Guide to Hacker Slang. The Jargon File. Copyright © 2007. Read more | |
![]() |
![]() | Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; sign up free. Read more |
| Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang. Oxford University Press. © 1997, 2008, 2010 All rights reserved. Read more | ||
| Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry. Oxford University Press. Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology © 1997, 2000, 2006 All rights reserved. Read more | ||
![]() | Saunders Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() |
![]() | Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
| Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved. Read more | ||
![]() | Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |