hair n.
1. (also hare) pubic hair.
| [ |  | ‘Fingallian Dance’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 310: (Be me shole!) I did spee / Six C[unts] abateing Seav’n hairs]. |
| Revels of the Gods 7: Now Pallas [Athene] [...] /Cry’d out, I thank Jove, I am made in Perfection; / And ev’ry thing have, from an Hole to a Hair. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Honest Fellow 44: I have a tenement to let, / [...] /It is surrounded by a wood, / Where there is game in plenty, / Of hairs so stout you scarce can find / The like in places twenty. | |
| Satirist (London) 17 June 199/2: But now, to choose between the pair [of girls named Bushe & Hare], / I’m driven to such push, / I’d fain both course it with the Hare, / And nestle in the Bushe! | |
| Pretty Little Games (1872) plate ii: The Country Squire to London came, / And left behind his dogs and game; / Yet finer sport he has in view, / And hunts the hare and coney too. | |
| Lustful Memoirs of a Young and Passionated Girl 34: What a terrible state the darling is in to be sure. [...] I think it needs a hair poultice. That will soon take the swelling down and draw the matter out of it. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sport (Adelaide) 2 Oct. 5/5: Rabby and the little girl with the [...] Teddy Bear Coat went roaming through the scrub [...] hunting for hares, don’t you see. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | (con. 1880–1924) Anecdota erótica 13: Adam and Eve were Irish. Adam dropped his fig leaf. Eve said: ‘Oh, Toole.’ Eve dropped hers. Adam said: ‘Oh, Hare.’. | |
| ‘No Mediocre’ 🎵 Right hand in the air, I solemnly swear / I never fuck a bitch if she don’t do her hair, no more / You won’t get no dick if it’s a bush down there. |
2. a generic term for the female sex; thus hair-monger, a womanizer; plenty of hair, large numbers of women; put down some hair, of a man, to have sexual intercourse.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Nugae Venales 2: In Whetstone’s Park, he replied; and a Pox on’t, said he, I can find never a Hair in’t. | |
| ‘Wry-Mouth Bob And His Jolly Red Nob’ in Cuckold’s Nest 49: Wry-mouth Bob, with his jolly red nob, / Worked well upon the whole, / Each damsel fair would he suit to a hair, / And please them to the soul. | |
| Flash Mirror 11: What does a popular modern rake like most? — A change of h-air . |
3. (US) the scalp, as a trophy; usu. in phr. lift or raise hair.
| Life in the Far West (1849) 5: I’ve ‘raised the hair’ of more than one Apach. [Ibid.] 31: To approach the Indian camp and charge into it, ‘lift’ as much ‘hair’ as they could. | |
| Nights in Block-House 18: The red varmints want his hair bad [DAE]. | |
| Congressional Report 17 Aug. n.p.: The Arrapahoes were not after stealing cattle but after lifting hair [F&H]. | |
| Miss Nobody of Nowhere 101: If you’ll take the chance of keeping your hair. | |
| Sudden Takes the Trail 127: Jake’s a good scout, but if he was after my ha’r I’d take to the tall timber. | |
| Popular Western June 89/1: See the savages haven’t lifted your hair yet, amigo! [DA]. |
4. (US) a curative drink for a hangover [abbr. hair of the dog (that bit one) n.].
| in Bark On 119: Having taken a couple of fingers of ‘har,’ he departed to see his friend Dr. B [HDAS]. | |
| Bushman All 135: They got a hair, in fact several hairs. | |
| (con. 1896) Voyage (1977) 127: ‘Here’—he extended the bottle—‘would you like to put a little hair in that coffee?’. |
5. (Ulster) a hair-pulling fight between women.
| Slanguage. |
6. in fig. uses.
(a) composure.
| Lonely Plough (1931) 207: It’s frightfully interesting to see how the other man gets his hair up when you foul him [...] He doesn’t enter into the spirit of things like you. Hoofy just gets his hair blazing and lams into you and yells for help, and there’s no seeing past his feet when once the ball’s on the other side. | |
| ‘Hard News’ 25 Apr. on N.Z. News Net 🌐 You’re gonna have to have *hair* in Auckland Central and that’s something that Rodney Hide just hasn’t got. |
(b) (US campus) courage, masculine prowess [the image of the hairy-chested macho man; note 1960s US sports use show hair, for a sportsman to play aggressively and well].
| Holy Barbarians 160: Organized church worship...is religion ‘shorn of its hair and balls,’ as Chuck Bennison will tell you [HDAS]. | |
| ‘Notes on Campus Vocabulary’ in AS XL:3 194: An athlete may be said to have a lot of hair or show a lot of hair if he plays aggressively and well in a game. | |
| (con. 1958) Been Down So Long (1972) 59: Here and there an occasional shocked recognition, then embarrassed shifting away. Only one of them with enough hair to call my name. | |
| Street Talk 2 68: You’ve got hair, dude! [...] When I saw that green monster comin’ I haired out. |
In compounds
(US) the female genitals.
| Underground Dict. (1972). | |
| Sl. and Euphemism 189: hairburger 1. the female genitals, with reference to cunnilingus. |
(US) a large penis.
| Actionable Offenses ‘The Whores’ Union’ (2007) [cylinder recording ENHS 30188] NB--Liberal allowance is made for button-hole pricks, commonly called cunt robbers, hair curlers, liver disturbers, kidney wipers, belly ticklers, bowel starters, etc. Anything above fourteen inches barred out. |
mid-18C-the female pubic hair; thus the fountain in hair court, the vagina.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland (1892) 76: The small thatch’d house bneeath the hill, / Or fountain in Hair Court, sirs. | |
| Toasts‘’ in New Cockalorum Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) II 24: The fonntain [sic] in Hair Court. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
the penis.
| Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Hair Splitter. A man’s yard. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Hair Splitter. A thing with use without ornament. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Sl. and Euphemism 189: hair-divider the penis [...] hair-splitter the penis. | |
| Dict. of Obscenity etc. |
a womanizer.
| Satiromastix IV ii: Charge one of them to take vp the Buckllers, against that hayre-monger Horace. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
1. (orig. US) cunnilingus.
| ‘Prostitutes & Criminal Argots’ in Lang. Und. (1981) 116/1: To eat pussy. Cunnilingus. Also hair-pie, sixty-nine. | |
| (con. 1920s) Hoods (1953) 92: He goes in for hair pie. | |
| Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words 133: He ate hair pie last night and his wife’s been smiling all day. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 9: Certainly hair pie was never one of my beloved wife’s specialities. | |
| White Shoes 259: If her hair pie’s half as good as this, Muzz, you’re on a good thing. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
2. (orig. US) the vagina.
| in Folk Speech n.p.: ‘Hair pie’ (i.e., female genitalia) [HDAS]. | |
| Mainside 92: Marks realized that he had indeed not seen the menu [...] duodenal surprise/ hair pie / goat ass. | |
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | |
| Dandy 30: Every man who knew her probably, at one time or another, wanted to cut a slice of her hair pie. | |
| Cujo (1982) 93: Ugly phrases, terrible terms kept crowding up [...] nooky, hair pie, put the boots to her. | |
| Homeboy 137: Bare nookie! [...] Hair pie! | |
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: hairy pie n. A kipper; Velcro triangle (qv). | |
| Danielle’s Delight [comic bk] 1: How’s my favorite gay girlie this morning? I got a big sausage for ya or you’se still eaten da hair pies? | |
| Devil All the Time 123: ‘It’s ruined many a good man, that ol’ nasty hair pie’. | |
| Widespread Panic 121: Crocheted bikinis cut hairpie loooooow. |
3. (US) the penis in the context of fellatio.
| Q&A 155: ‘For shame, a married man fooling around with the fairies.’ [...] ‘Are you accusin’ me of bein’ a hair-pie man, Nathan?’. |
In phrases
in pursuit of a woman for sexual purposes.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
sexual intercourse; thus get/have a bit of hair.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| DSUE (1984) 519/2: C.19–20. |
of a man, to visit a woman for the purpose of sexual intercourse.
| ‘Tommy & his Sister Jane’ in Mr Punch’s Model Music Hall 154: tommy.: What, Uncle going? the w.u.: (with assumed jauntiness). Just to get my hair cut! | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 11: Aller se faire couper les cheveux = to visit a brothel; to ‘go and get one’s hair cut’. |
(Aus.) to become angry.
| Truth (Sydney) 26 May 3/1: Reid [...] got his hair off by indulging in tirades against ‘this wretched tariff warfare’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Feb. 32/1: Father: I’ll wring your necks. / White Cockatoo (sadly): The old man has got his hair off this morning; better look slippy, Billy. | |
| Healesville & Yarra Glen Guardian (Vic.) 31 May 736/6: You won’t get your hair off, Colonel, if I say it? | |
| Pioneers on Parade 154: Don’t get your hair off, old man; I’m sorry your holiday has been spoiled. [Ibid.] 169: She really got her wool off. |
to be fearful.
| Street Talk 2 68: You’ve got hair, dude! [...] When I saw that green monster comin’ I haired out. |
a phr. used of a woman who is willing to prostitute herself.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
see separate entry.
to lose one’s temper.
| Macmillan’s Mag. (London) II 788: All right [...] don’t lose your hair as well as your hat. It isn’t the first time she’s upset me, and I daresay it won’t be the last. | |
| Chaste Man 180: ‘I tell you I have to get out!’ ‘Righto. Don’t lose your hair about it.’. | |
| Georgian Stories 60: Righto — don’t lose your hair, [...] I don’t want to know anything about your beastly business. | |
| Escape (1977) 14: Don’t lose your hair — I tell you, on my honor, this lady did not annoy me in the least. | |
| Nursing Home Murder (1999) 38: No, don’t lose your hair, Banks. I’d like to know. |
directed at a workman who is failing to put something into something else.
| Dict. Catch Phrases (1985). | |
| Maledicta IX 195: This article and series devoted to sexual slang would be incomplete without some notice of catch phrases, both British and American: […] shall I put a bit of hair around it for you? |
to have sexual intercourse.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 54: Caresse, f. An act of coition; ‘a turn in Hair Court’. | |
| Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 197: The terms used for copulating […] are not really euphemistic because it is implicit that no ambiguity could possibly result and, unlike euphemisms, they are, or used to be, avoided in polite, mixed company. Related to this group are the allusive […] to take a turn [...] in Hair Court. |
pestering, irritating.
| ‘I Luv U’ 🎵 That boy’s some prick you know / All up in my hair / Thinks that I care / Following me here, following me there. |
SE in slang uses
In derivatives
see separate entry.
In compounds
1. a veteran police officer.
| in N.Y. Times 20 Oct. 34/1: A man a long time on the police force is a hairbag. | |
| Taunton Courier 23 July 3/6: American slang [...] A niff-naws or a hair-bag. The moll-buzzers bullskate and the mayvins yentz. | |
| Patrolman 11: My partner that night, a lethargic old ‘hairbag’ (old-timer) who could not be aroused by Raquel Welch. | |
| Cops 36: There wasn’t a guy had less than fifteen years on the force, which is to say they were all hairbags and I was a rookie. | |
| 14 Peck Slip 285: It had been moved to cover three bullet holes put there by an old hairbag who tried to shoot the clock out at midnight on his retirement date. | |
| A Time Gone By (2005) 35: Donahue was a sergeant closing in on his thirty years—an old hairbag in department lexicon, a term used to describe an aging and often useless cop who was just biding his time until he could get out. | |
| The Force [ebook] One of the old hairbags taught him [...] your first job is to go home at end of shift. |
2. an unpleasant, disgusting person.
| Stand (1st edn only) 94: You got this comin outta the store, you hairbag. | |
| It (1987) 36: Avarino, who could almost read this hairbag’s pussy little mind, suspected he was thinking about his stepfather again. | |
| ‘Take Derryn Hinch...Please’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] He was a scumbag, a hairbag, a toe-rag, a boil on the arse of society. |
a general term of derision for a situation or person.
| Glitter Dome (1982) 50: You two hairballs come up with a good idea once in a while. | |
| Homeboy 239: The hairball made sure Earl understood. | |
| Robbers (2001) 12: Guy raped and killed three women [...] Don’t take no chances with a hairball like that. |
(US gay) a gay male hairdresser.
| Lavender Lex. n.p.: hair burner: A person engaged professionally in hair dressing. Also hair bender. | |
| ‘Sex in public Places’ Vector May 15: I’m not interested in having a ridiculous ‘love affair’ with some hair burner [...] I’d much rather solicit the momentary services of some stud in the bushes. | |
| Mother Camp 28: In Chicago there are whole occupational groups that are considered part of the gay world, such as ‘hairburners’. | |
| Gay (S)language. |
(US) an effeminate male homosexual, with long or styled hair.
| Lavender Lex. n.p.: hair fairy: An effeminante homosexual who places over emphasis on his hair. Uses hair spray, has extremely long hair, or is constantly combing his hair. | |
| letter 13 July in Proud Highway (1997) 632: Check the current (Aug) Pageant [...] for my article on hair-fairies. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
see separate entry.
(Aus.) a barber.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Dec. 27/1: Yes; that Bulletin yarn, t’other day, about er barber bloke gettin’ even on a funny man reads orlight, but up on the Towers in ’94 I knowed a funny hair-shifter that fell in bad. |
(US teen) a prude.
| Yank (Far East edn) 24 Mar. 18/2–3: Some of today’s teen-agers – pleasantly not many – talk the strange new language of ‘sling swing’. In the bright lexicon of the good citizens of tomorrow [...] A prude is a ‘hair shirt’. |
In phrases
(US) to shock, to amaze.
| Genesis of Gender 125: I had never done a deep dive into the complexities of sexual development before, and her radical conclusions blew my hair back. |
(Aus.) keep calm.
| Sport (Adelaide) 12 Feb. 5/6: Don’t get your hair off, deah bhoy. |
to irritate.
| Franchise Affair (1954) 260: ‘[F]or some reason or other she got in my hair. [...] [T]here was something about this little tramp that turned my stomach’. |
(UK society) betraying one’s lower-class origins; of poor breeding, socially inferior.
| Post to Finish II 49: This chap struck me as a deal better bred ’un than they are mostly. He’s no hair about the heels, so to speak. | |
| Duet 212: I couldn’t stand that chap at any price. A bit too hairy in the fetlocks for my taste. | |
| Hill (2009) 270: The Rev. Septimus scowled [...] ‘I always said he was hairy at the heel.’. | |
| Huntingtower 213: I can’t say I ever liked him [...] Bit hairy about the heels. | |
| Murder in the Mews (1954) 30: Bit hairy at the heel. Definitely not out of the top drawer. | |
| Dead Man’s Mirror (1984) 59: The Colonel delivered himself of the opinion that Godfrey Burrows was slightly hairy at the heel. |
(Aus.) of hair, very messy, unkempt.
| www.slang-dictionary.org/Australian-Slang 🌐 Hair like a bush pig's arse [...] unmanageable hair. | |
| Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] Vital Aussie Vernacular Hair Like a Bush Pig’s Arse: Messy. |
see separate entry.
a hangover cure that consists of drinking more of the alcohol that created the hangover.
| Bartholomew Fair I iii: ’Twas a hot night with some of us, last night, John: shall we pluck a hair o’ the same wolf today, Proctor John? |
see separate entry.
a nuisance, an irritant.
| ‘Ancient Tribes’ Oz ser. 2 ep. 2 [TV script] Schibetta’s dead. His son is a hair across our ass now. |
1. to be in a bad temper, to be irritable or complaining.
| [ | | Two & Three 22 Jan. [synd. col.] Oiwng to the wild hairs in the telephone service, the work of awarding the 1919 prizes is progressing slowly]. |
| Battle Cry (1964) 136: He’s sure had a wild hair up his ass lately. | |
| (con. 1950) Band of Brothers 103: What’s wrong? You got a wild hair or somethin? | |
| (con. early 1950s) Valhalla 460: ‘If you get a wild hair up your ass let me know about it, too. Someone should.’ He winked and walked away. | |
| Flesh Peddlers (1964) 16: Who put a hair up his prat? You rile him or something? | |
| (con. 1950s) Unit Pride (1981) 69: What’s eatin’ you Billy? You got a hair across your ass a mile wide. | |
| et al. CUSS 133: Hair across your ass, have a. Constantly complaining and irritable. | |
| (con. 1945) Tattoo (1977) 412: Cheatham had a hair in his ass, was the consensus. Not at all himself. | |
| Close Quarters (1987) 20: He got some wild hair up his ass and got ta chasing this gook on foot. | |
| Southern Discomfort (1983) 70: Have you got a wild hair up your ass, or what, girl? | |
| Hooligans (2003) 21: You got a hair up your ass just like the rest of us. | |
| In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 71: ‘No, I ain’t got a toothache.’ ‘How about a wild hair up your ass? You got a wild pussy whisker up your ass?’. | |
| ‘All Beer and Skittles’ in Zoom 16: He had a hair up his arse / at the best of times. | |
| Sweet La-La Land (1999) 89: How about you get some sonofabitch suddenly gets a wild hair up his ass, drives off in a brand-new Mercedes. | |
| Spares 101: Every now and then, the mayor’ll get a hair up his ass over the hundreds of unsolved homicides in this sector. | |
| At End of Day (2001) 92: I dunno what he did that day to piss you off, but that night you had a hair across your ass. | |
| Undoing 551: The word I got is that some kids invaded the compound and Benson’s got a wild hair up his ass about it. |
2. to have an obsession; thus wild hair up one’s ass n., an obsession.
| (con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 177: ‘What chases you to war, Joe?’ [...] ‘Wild hair in my ass,’ Joe whispered. | |
| Breaks 158: I wandered into the English office with this wild hair up my ass that I was going to be booed out of the classroom. | |
| Cornerstone 65: Seems ol’ Harry’s got him this wild hair up his ass to build a fireplace over to the lodge. | |
| The Force [ebook] Malone has a wild hair. ‘How about the Boardwalk?’. |
of a joke or anecdote, to be old, to be out of date, no longer to be amusing or pertinent.
| (con. c.1930) Georgia 259: Oh, Georgetown, you poor kid. That gag’s so old it’s wearing hair. | |
| (con. 1969) Dispatches 30: That was a story from the A Shau Valley years before my time there, an old story with the hair still growing on it. | |
| (con. 1972) What It Was 86: That gag’s got gray hair on it. |
see have someone/something by the short and curlies under short and curlies n.
(US) in difficulties.
| Whiplash River [ebook] Shake had been forced to talk his way out of several hairy situations [...] But Shake couldn’t imagine how a president of the United States ended up in the hair like that. |
(US) to perform a scalping.
| Buffalo Bill 49: ‘[T]hey didn't wait to be particular and lift hair, but put out to scour the prairie after me. |
see under swallow v.