–noun

1.	any of the numerous fine, usually cylindrical, keratinous filaments growing from the skin of humans and animals; a pilus.

2.	an aggregate of such filaments, as that covering the human head or forming the coat of most mammals.

3.	a similar fine, filamentous outgrowth from the body of insects, spiders, etc.

4.	Botany. a filamentous outgrowth of the epidermis.

5.	cloth made of hair from animals, as camel and alpaca.

6.	a very small amount, degree, measure, magnitude, etc.; a fraction, as of time or space: He lost the race by a hair.

—Idioms

7.	get in someone's hair, Slang. to annoy or bother someone: Their snobbishness gets in my hair.

8.	hair of the dog, Informal. a drink of liquor, supposed to relieve a hangover: Even a hair of the dog didn't help his aching head. Also, hair of the dog that bit one.

9.	let one's hair down, Informal. a. to relax; behave informally: He finally let his hair down and actually cracked a joke. b. to speak candidly or frankly; remove or reduce restraints: He let his hair down and told them about his anxieties.

< 146 tr>

10.	make one's hair stand on end, to strike or fill with horror; terrify: The tales of the jungle made our hair stand on end.

11.	split hairs, to make unnecessarily fine or petty distinctions: To argue about whether they arrived at two o'clock or at 2:01 is just splitting hairs.

12.	tear one's hair, to manifest extreme anxiety, grief, or anger: He's tearing his hair over the way he was treated by them. Also, tear one's hair out.

13.	to a hair, perfect to the smallest detail; exactly: The reproduction matched the original to a hair.

14.	without turning a hair, without showing the least excitement or emotion. Also, not turn a hair.

–noun

1.	detriment, disadvantage, or deprivation from failure to keep, have, or get: to bear the loss of a robbery.

2.	something that is lost: The painting was the greatest loss from the robbery.

3.	an amount or number lost: The loss of life increased each day.

4.	the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had: the loss of old friends.

5.	death, or the fact of being dead: to mourn the loss of a grandparent.

6.	the accidental or inadvertent losing of something dropped, misplaced, stolen, etc.: to discover the loss of a document.

7.	a 3e8 losing by defeat; failure to win: the loss of a bet.

8.	failure to make good use of something, as time; waste.

9.	failure to preserve or maintain: loss of engine speed at high altitudes.

10.	destruction or ruin: the loss of a ship by fire.

11.	a thing or a number of related things that are lost or destroyed to some extent: Most buildings in the burned district were a total loss.

12.	Military. a. the losing of soldiers by death, capture, etc. b. Often, losses. the number of soldiers so lost.

13.	Insurance. occurrence of an event, as death or damage of property, for which the insurer makes indemnity under the terms of a policy.

14.	Electricity. a measure of the power lost in a system, as by conversion to heat, expressed as a relation between power input and power output, as the ratio of or difference between the two quantities.

—Idiom

15.	at a loss, a. at less than cost; at a financial loss. b. in a state of bewilderment or uncertainty; puzzled; perplexed: We are completely at a loss for an answer to the problem.