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PlainSpell

hair

UK /ˈhɛə/noun, verb

hair is spelled H-A-I-R: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 120 times per million words in written English, the 873rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, hair means “A pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of hair is hairs.

How many letters and syllables are in hair?

Letters4: H-A-I-R
Syllables1
In writing120 times per million words; the 873rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is hair?

Hair appears 120 times per million words in written English, the 873rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce hair?

  • UK /ˈhɛə/
  • UK [ˈhɛə̯]
  • UK [ˈhɛː]

Hair has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-hair.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-hair.wav, En-us-hair.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with hair

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

hair vs hare0 B
hair vs heir0 B

Sounds like: hare (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with hair?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as hair from its last stressed vowel (/ɛə/, British pronunciation):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: riah.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of hair

  • hairs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • hairing participle, present
  • haired participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does hair mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A pigmented filament of keratin which grows from a follicle on the skin of humans and other mammals.

  2. 2

    The collection or mass of such growths growing from the skin of humans and animals, and forming a covering for any part or the whole body.

  3. 3

    Specifically, the collection of hairs on the top and sides of the human head, growing from the scalp.

    In the western world, women usually have long hair while men usually have short hair.

  4. 4

    A slender outgrowth from the chitinous cuticle of insects, spiders, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. Such hairs are totally unlike those of vertebrates in structure, composition, and mode of growth.

  5. 5

    A cellular outgrowth of the epidermis, consisting of one or of several cells, whether pointed, hooked, knobbed, or stellated.

    Internal hairs occur in the flower stalk of the yellow frog lily (Nuphar).

  6. 6

    Any slender, flexible outgrowth, filament, or fiber growing or projecting from the surface of an object or organism.

    (uncountable, by extension) The collection or mass of such outgrowths, filaments, or fibers growing or projecting from the surface of an object or organism.

  7. 7

    A locking spring or other safety device in the lock of a rifle, etc., capable of being released by a slight pressure on a hair-trigger.

  8. 8

    Any very small distance, or degree; a hairbreadth.

    Just a little louder please–turn that knob a hair to the right.

verb

  1. 1

    To remove the hair from.

  2. 2

    To grow hair (where there was a bald spot).

  3. 3

    To cause to have or bear hair; to provide with hair

  4. 4

    To string the bow for a violin.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Hair in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpoil (pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of…), cheveu, cheveux, chevelure (mass of such filaments on the human head), poils (mass of such filaments growing from the skin of…)
GermanHaar (pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of…), Haare (mass of such filaments on the human head)
Portuguesepelo (pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of…), cabelo (mass of such filaments on the human head), cabeleira (mass of such filaments growing from the skin of…)
Spanishpelo, cabello, capilar, piloso (pigmented filament of keratin on the skin of…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hair come from?

From Middle English her, heer, hær, from Old English hǣr, from Proto-West Germanic *hār, from Proto-Germanic *hērą (“hair”), from Proto-Indo-European *kes- (“to scrape, comb”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after hair