hairiness

noun

"hairiness" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“hairiness” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
9
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The characteristic of being hairy.

Corpus desk

Index EN-hairiness · hairiness · English

hairiness · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for hairiness
PropertyValue
Headwordhairiness
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “hairiness” in English

hairinessfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

hairiness is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for hairiness in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From hairy + -ness. The correct English form is hairiness, spelled H-A-I-R-I-N-E-S-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    The characteristic of being hairy.
  2. 2
    A characteristic of yarn: the proportion of fibre ends that stick out and are not embedded in the yarn body.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how hairiness appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. 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;…
  2. 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.

Etymology

From hairy + -ness.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "hairiness"?
"hairiness" is spelled H-A-I-R-I-N-E-S-S.
What does "hairiness" mean?
As a noun, "hairiness" means: The characteristic of being hairy.
What is the origin of the word "hairiness"?
From hairy + -ness. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list