vibrissa
/vɪˈbɹɪsə/ noun
Forms vibrissae
- noun Any of the tactile whiskers on the nose of an animal such as a cat.
- noun Any similar feather near the mouth of some birds.
- noun (anatomy, chiefly in the plural) A thick hair found inside the nostrils of humans and other mammals.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin vibrissae.
Webster’s 1913
- noun One of the specialized or tactile hairs which grow about the nostrils, or on other parts of the face, in many animals, as the so-called whiskers of the cat, and the hairs of the nostrils of man.
- noun The bristlelike feathers near the mouth of many birds.
Etymology [L. vibrissae, pl., the hairs in the nostrils of man, fr. vibrare to vibrate; -- so called because touching them tickles a person, and causes him to shake his head.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “vibrissa”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details