whisker

[ hwis-ker, wis- ]

noun

1. whiskers, a beard.
2. Usually whiskers. side whiskers.
3. a single hair of the beard.
4. Archaic. a mustache.
5. one of the long, stiff, bristly hairs growing about the mouth of certain animals, as the cat or rat; vibrissa.
6. Also called whisker boom,. Nautical. any spar for extending the clew or clews of a sail so that it can catch more wind.
7. Radio, Electronics. cat whisker.
8. Crystallography. a thin filament of a crystal, usually several millimeters long and one to two microns in diameter, having unusually great strength.

whisker

/ ˈwɪskə /

noun

1. any of the stiff sensory hairs growing on the face of a cat, rat, or other mammal Technical namevibrissa
2. any of the hairs growing on a person's face, esp on the cheeks or chin
3. plural a beard or that part of it growing on the sides of the face
4. informal.
   plural a moustache
5. Also calledwhisker boomwhisker pole any light spar used for extending the clews of a sail, esp in light airs
6. chem a very fine filamentary crystal having greater strength than the bulk material since it is a single crystal. Such crystals often show unusual electrical properties
7. a person or thing that whisks
8. a narrow margin; a small distance

   he escaped death by a whisker

Other Words From

• whisker·y adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of whisker¹

late Middle English word dating back to 1375–1425; whisk, -er ¹

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. by a whisker, by the narrowest margin:

   She won the race by a whisker.

More idioms and phrases containing whisker

see by a hair (whisker) ; win by a nose (whisker) .

Example Sentences

The best beard conditioner will soften the whiskers and make them easier to style and manage.

From Popular-Science

By repeating this pattern, they dampened the whisker-neuron connection, making the cell less likely to respond to whisker movements.

From Nautilus

The resulting ice whiskers were a few micrometers in diameter or less, a fraction of the width of a typical human hair.

From Science News

Such work could one day enable scientists to build artificial whiskers as tactile sensors in robotics as well as shed further light on human touch.

From Ars Technica

Now an interdisciplinary team at Northwestern University has come up with a new model to help predict how a rat's whiskers activate different sensory cells to do just that, according to a new paper published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

From Ars Technica

Not anymore: A Rasmussen poll out last week now shows Pryor ahead by a whisker, and the race is now essentially a tie.

From The Daily Beast

Some taxidermists actually remove and reinsert each whisker individually by hand to support their biological narrative.

From The Daily Beast

Todd made a $2,000 donation to charity and kept the goatee by a whisker.

From The Daily Beast

She went quickly through the drawing-room door into the house, leaving Jaffery still scratching a red whisker.

From Project Gutenberg

He had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the lower part of his face to be apparent.

From Project Gutenberg

She gathered the three remaining ones together, and fed them and licked them all over tenderly with soft whisker kisses.

From Project Gutenberg

The fact, however, was that no whisker could be made to come sufficiently forward to be of service, and therefore he wore none.

From Project Gutenberg

This officer's face was a whisker plantation, through which his eyes peeped forth like two snakes coiled up in a window-brush.

From Project Gutenberg