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If you’ve seen even one horror movie featuring a werewolf, you likely can recall the classic transformation scene of such films: tufts of hair sprouting from under cuffs and collars, some unfortunate soul’s head suddenly covered by a shaggy, full-face beard. It’s enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your own neck! Werewolves are common hirsute horror antagonists, which is fitting (unlike a werewolf’s clothes) since hirsute and horror share etymological roots. Hirsute entered English in the early 17th century with nearly the same spelling and exactly the same meaning as its Latin parent, hirsutus. Hirsutus, in turn, is a cousin of the Latin verb horrēre, meaning “to bristle.” Horrēre gave rise to the Latin word horrōr-, horror, which has the various meanings of “standing stiffly,” “bristling,” “shivering,” “dread,” and “consternation,” and is the source, via Anglo-French, of our word horror. And if you need a fancy word for the goose bumps you experience watching Lon Chaney in his hirsute suit, may we suggest another hirsute relation, horripilation; its Latin source, the verb horripilāre, means “to shudder,” and was formed from horrēre and pilus (“hair”).
Examples of hirsute in a Sentence
Rob Sheffield,
Rolling Stone,
28 Apr. 2026
By documenting lushly hirsute Japanese officials alongside their beardless counterparts, portraiture preserved a photographic record of colonial subjects’ visibly inferior status.
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H.m.a. Leow,
JSTOR Daily,
13 Sep. 2025
The more hirsute Bellucci was reduced to stealing a solitary game in the first hour from the purple streak of lightning running the show from the other side of the net.
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Tim Ellis,
Forbes.com,
28 Aug. 2025
Physically, Goldberg is balder and leaner; Rogen is hirsute and softer.
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Austin Considine,
New York Times,
26 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hirsute
Cite this Entry
“Hirsute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hirsute. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.
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