whisker
/ˈwɪskə
/noun
1A long projecting hair or bristle growing from the face or snout of many mammals.Every once in a while, particularly when I take out clothes that I haven't worn since our move, I find a cat whisker or a dog hair....
- Another notable mode of sensation in cats are whiskers, or vibrissae.
- It has a nose like a dog's, teeth like a leopard's, and whiskers like an otter's.
1.1 (whiskers) The hair growing on a man’s face, especially on his cheeks.The examiner was a Dr Bull, an elderly anatomy lecturer of rather Victorian appearance, with mutton-chop whiskers and beetling eyebrows....
- Since the mustache part of General Burnside's invention was nothing new, the cheek whiskers became known as ‘Burnsides’ and enjoyed a certain vogue among men of the day.
- The Emperor Franz Josef favoured equally luxuriant mutton-chop whiskers - effectively a beard, with the chin shaven.
2 (a whisker) informal A very small amount: they won the election by a whisker...
- I intuit Blair will win the election by a whisker.
- This year, for example, the amount given to Republicans is just a whisker more than $1 million.
- This release just missed the cut on the last missive by a whisker and a bit.
3A single crystal of a material in the form of a filament with no dislocations.The particles may be carbon fibers, carbon black, carbon whiskers, coated hollow microspheres, or a combination thereof....
- However, these materials were still too weak to support their own weight without tapering, although in the case of graphite whiskers the taper ratio was a more manageable 100.
- Chlamydomonas strains were transformed according to the silicon carbide whisker method of DUNAHAY 1993, with the following modifications.
Phrases
have (or have grown) whiskers
within a whisker of
Derivatives
whiskered
/ adjective ...- For most of his career, the 69-year-old stage and TV actor has specialised in playing older character parts - more often than not the kind of fearsomely whiskered old coves who look like they'd be pretty handy with a blunderbuss.
- Occasionally I would be rewarded with a wee, twitching, whiskered snout poking out of the little yellow house.
- Rivalling the film's spectacular scenery for radiant, wintry beauty, Nicole Kidman plays Ada, pitching up in the town of Cold Mountain with her preacher pappy - a white whiskered Donald Sutherland.
whiskery
/ adjective ...- A fat, whiskery man relaxing on the bridge introduced himself as ‘Casper - the friendly Second Officer’.
- When I got back to the table I stood behind Papa, slipped my arms around his neck and bending down kissed his whiskery cheek.
- For many people the word ‘geologist’ is apt to conjure up images of whiskery Victorian fossil collectors clad in heavy tweeds.
Origin
Late Middle English (originally denoting a bundle of feathers, twigs, etc., used for whisking): from the verb whisk + -er1.
A whisker was originally a bundle of twigs used to whisk with. It was used for facial hair, particularly a moustache from about 1600, presumably because of some perceived similarity, and only used of animals at the end of the 17th century. Cat's whisker was used for the wire used to tune an early crystal radio set at the start of the 20th century. The card game whist was originally called whisk when it came in during the mid 17th century.
Rhymes
- Proto-Gospel
- protogram
- protograph
- protogynous
- protogyny
- protohaem
- protoheme
- Protohippus
- proto-historian
- proto-historic
- proto-historical
- proto-history
- proto-Hittite
- protohominid
- protohuman
- proto-ideal
- Proto-Indo-European
- proto-industrial
- deictically
- deid
- deid bell
- deid licht
- deific
- deification
- deiform