hair
part of speech
noun (hair — usually uncountable; a hair, hairs — single strands)
meaning for a pupil
1) Hair is what grows on your head and on parts of your body. tree →
2) A hair is one single thin strand. tree →
3) Hair, or fur, also grows on many animals. tree →
sense in the lessons
A word of the story; sometimes a length that grows or is cut, or a haircut price. In science: hair grows from roots in the skin; mammals have hair. In health: brush and wash your hair; head lice spread by touching heads. Phrases: «brush your hair», «haircut», «by a hair», «let your hair down», «hair-raising».
examples
- Her hair is 30 cm long. tree →
- She cut 5 cm off her hair. tree →
- Hair grows about 1 cm a month. tree →
- A haircut costs 15 dollars. tree →
- I found a hair in my soup! tree →
- Grandpa's hair is grey. tree →
- Do not share combs, or you may share head lice. tree →
- She won the race by a hair. tree →
- What if the hair should break? tree →
note
Cutting takes away length, growing adds. Trap: hair often only describes a person (red hair) and gives no number. Hair on your head is uncountable: «her hair is long», not «her hairs are long». Homophone: hare (an animal like a big rabbit).
In the corpora
- Some cancer treatments make hair fall out because they attack fast-growing cells; the hair usually grows back after treatment.
- Everyone gets older: grey hair, glasses and stiffer knees come, but so do experience and wisdom.
- Most American tarantulas flick itchy barbed hairs at enemies, and female tarantulas can live 20 to 30 years.
- The nose warms and moistens air, and its hairs and sticky mucus catch dust and germs before they reach the lungs.
- Fine hairs on spiders' legs sense the tiniest air movements and tell the spider which way they come from.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «hair» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.