Word of the Day

: October 15, 2023

hirsute

adjective HER-soot

What It Means

Hirsute is a formal word that means “hairy.” It is also often used in humorous contexts to describe someone with a lot of hair on their face or body. Botanists use hirsute to describe plant parts, such as leaves, that are covered in coarse, stiff hairs.

// Turner wore a hirsute mask as part of his werewolf costume for the school play.

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hirsute in Context

“Outfielder Reggie Jackson, as the story goes, arrived for spring training with a mustache. A few pitchers followed suit, thinking they all would need to shave. Instead, then-A’s owner Charlie Finley offered a $300 bonus to any player who grew a mustache. The result: A World Series between the hirsute A’s and clean-cut Reds was dubbed ‘The Hairs vs. The Squares.’” — Matt Kawahara, SFChronicle.com, 3 June 2022

Did You Know?

If you’ve seen even one horror movie featuring a werewolf, you likely can recall the classic transformation scene of such films: tufts of hair sprouting from under cuffs and collars, some unfortunate soul’s head suddenly covered by a shaggy, full-face beard. It’s enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your own neck! Werewolves are common hirsute horror antagonists, which is fitting (unlike a werewolf’s clothes) since hirsute and horror share etymological roots. Hirsute entered English in the early 17th century with nearly the same spelling and exactly the same meaning as its Latin parent, hirsutus. Hirsutus, in turn, is a cousin of the Latin verb horrēre, meaning “to bristle.” Horrēre gave rise to the Latin word horrōr-, horror, which has the various meanings of “standing stiffly,” “bristling,” “shivering,” “dread,” and “consternation,” and is the source, via Anglo-French, of our word horror. And if you need a fancy word for the goose bumps you experience watching Lon Chaney in his hirsute suit, may we suggest another hirsute relation, horripilation; its Latin source, the verb horripilāre, means “to shudder,” and was formed from horrēre and pilus (“hair”).