hairiness

plural hairinesses

1. countableuncountableThe characteristic of being hairy.

   Small reddened but said stubbornly, “The cow likes my singing.” ¶ Cows are different from humans; perhaps the hairiness of their ears strains sound.

   1942, Emily Carr, “Singing”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, Observ. XXVI, We have had (says he) another of this kind brought us out of the East-Indies, which being planted was in shew like the former, but came not to perfection, the unkindly season not suffering it to shew the flower; but of the Cods that were brought, some were smaller, shorter, and rounder then the Garden kind; others much longer, and many growing together, as it were in clusters, and cover'd all over with a brown short hairiness, so fine, that if any of it be rubb'd, or fall on the back of ones hand, or other tender parts of the skin, it will cause a kind of itching […]

   The fore-feet of the Yahoo differed from my hands in nothing else but the length of the nails, the coarseness and brownness of the palms, and the hairiness on the backs.

   1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms)

   Spanberg, the Russian navigator, landed, he says, in a great island from 43° to 50° lat., speaks of the uncommon hairiness of the natives, and of their wearing of silver in their ears.

   1804, William Robert Broughton, A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, Book I, p. 92, footnote

2. countableuncountableengineeringA characteristic of yarn: the proportion of fibre ends that stick out and are not embedded in the yarn body.

   There was a reduction in hairiness of yarn after warping by about 17% in comparison to the hairiness of the wound yarn.

   1978, Ahmedabad Textile Industry's Research Association, Proceedings of the Technological Conference, page 91