hairline

English

Etymology

From hair +‎ line.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhɛɹˌlaɪn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

hairline (plural hairlines)

1. The line along one's forehead where hair starts growing.

   It's just a receding hairline — it's not like you're going bald.

   • 1984 May 28, Claudia Wallis, “Gone Today, but Hair Tomorrow”, in Time‎^[1]:

     Using a Danish technique, doctors can now insert plugs of just one or two hairs in front of an implanted area to simulate a natural hairline.

2. A very thin line in writing, drawing, or typography.
3. (figurative) A very thin fissure.

   While inspecting the new house, we found a few hairlines in one of the walls.

   There was a hairline crack in the airplane's wing.

   • 2012, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, page 102:

     Yup, you got a crack in it [the cylinder head] all right. Just a hairline, but that damn thing is gonna cause a big headache later.

4. A fishing line made from hair.

Derived terms

• hairlined
• hairlining

Translations

line along one's forehead where hair starts growing

• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 髮際線 / 发际线 (fàjìxiàn)

• Finnish: hiusraja (fi)
• Hungarian: hajvonal (hu)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: hårfeste n

  Nynorsk: hårfeste n

• Spanish: línea capilar f, nacimiento piloso m
• Turkish: saç çizgisi

thin line

• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: hiusviiva (fi)
• Hungarian: hajszálvonal

very thin fissure

• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: hiusmurtuma (fi)
• German: Haarriss (de) m