hairiness

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree English hairy Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness English hairiness From hairy + -ness.

1. The characteristic of being hairy.

   “1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, Observ. XXVI, We have had (says he) another of this kind brought us out of the East-Indies, which being planted was in shew like the former, but came not to perfection, the unkindly season not suffering it to shew the flower; but of the Cods that were brought, some were smaller, shorter, and rounder then the Garden kind; others much longer, and many growing together, as it were in clusters, and cover'd all over with a brown short hairiness, so fine, that if any of it be rubb'd, or fall on the back of ones hand, or other tender parts of the skin, it will cause a kind of itching […]”

   “The fore-feet of the Yahoo differed from my hands in nothing else but the length of the nails, the coarseness and brownness of the palms, and the hairiness on the backs.”

2. A characteristic of yarn: the proportion of fibre ends that stick out and are not embedded in the yarn body.

   “There was a reduction in hairiness of yarn after warping by about 17% in comparison to the hairiness of the wound yarn.”