What is an alternative to "hairy" for things which don't have hair?
My 2-year-old son has to bring in interesting leaves and foliage into nursery this week.
We came across a leaf that we have been describing to him as "hairy". However, it occurred to me that it is not actual hair, so "hairy" is probably not the right word. Is there a better one?
It doesn't have to be one for my son to use. I'm just interested.
The first Google result for 'leaves with hair' brings up the Wikipedia page for leaf which has a section devoted to 'hairiness'. Hairs (does appear to be the layman's term) on plants, technically called trichomes, can be of different types, the names of which are all potential adjectives for your purpose.
The Wikipedia page specifically reads:
"Hairs" on plants are properly called trichomes. Leaves can show several degrees of hairiness. The meaning of several of the following terms can overlap.
- arachnoid, or arachnose: with many fine, entangled hairs giving a cobwebby appearance.
- barbellate: with finely barbed hairs (barbellae).
- bearded: with long, stiff hairs.
- bristly: with stiff hair-like prickles.
- canescent: hoary with dense grayish-white pubescence.
- ciliate: marginally fringed with short hairs (cilia).
- ciliolate: minutely ciliate.
- floccose: with flocks of soft, woolly hairs, which tend to rub off.
- glabrescent: losing hairs with age.
- glabrous: no hairs of any kind present.
- glandular: with a gland at the tip of the hair.
- hirsute: with rather rough or stiff hairs.
- hispid: with rigid, bristly hairs.
- hispidulous: minutely hispid.
- hoary: with a fine, close grayish-white pubescence.
- lanate, or lanose: with woolly hairs.
- pilose: with soft, clearly separated hairs.
- puberulent, or puberulous: with fine, minute hairs.
- pubescent: with soft, short and erect hairs.
- scabrous, or scabrid: rough to the touch.
- sericeous: silky appearance through fine, straight and appressed (lying close and flat) hairs.
- silky: with adpressed, soft and straight pubescence.
- stellate, or stelliform: with star-shaped hairs.
- strigose: with appressed, sharp, straight and stiff hairs.
- tomentose: densely pubescent with matted, soft white woolly hairs.
- cano-tomentose: between canescent and tomentose.
- felted-tomentose: woolly and matted with curly hairs.
- tomentulose: minutely or only slightly tomentose.
- villous: with long and soft hairs, usually curved.
- woolly: with long, soft and tortuous or matted hairs.
For leaves with lots of hairs, the word fuzzy lends itself well, and is easily understood by a young child.
hair/he(ə)r/
Noun:
- Any of the fine threadlike strands growing from the skin of mammals and other animals.
- A similar strand growing from the epidermis of a plant, or forming part of a living cell.
(emphasis mine)
hair
4.
Botany . a filamentous outgrowth of the epidermis.
hair noun
3 [countable] a thing that looks like a fine thread growing on the leaves and stems of some plants
Maybe "downy" but while that may be more accurate it would be less understandable for many.
Sometimes "silken" or silky" is used for very fine smooth "haired" surfaces. Silk itself has no hairs (at least on a macroscopic scale) but the feel is similar to objects with a fine hair-like surface.
Hair-like.
Now, cheating:
I've left out the too too big adults words such as "hirsute"
Thesaurus.com only apposite words left in list.
bearded, bristly, bushy, downy, fleecy, fluffy, furry, fuzzy, rough, shaggy, stubbly, whiskered, woolly
Merriam Webster adds
brushy, cottony, furred, silky, unshorn, woolly (also wooly)
Thesaurus Babylon
Some may be duplicates - hard to spot all as lists grow :-)
bearded, bewhiskered, bristled, bristling, bristly, bushy, fibered, fibroid, fibrous, fleecy, flossy, fluffy, furry, fuzzy, matted, stringy, stubbled, stubbly, tangled, threadlike, thready, tufted, unshaven, unshorn, unsmooth, whiskered.