glabrous
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of glabrous
1630–40; < Latin glabr- (stem of glaber ) smooth, hairless + -ous
Explanation
The term glabrous describes surfaces that are smooth and free of hair, fur, or other types of fuzz. While most mammals are covered with hair or fur, some mammals, like adult dolphins, have glabrous skin. You might describe a shiny apple or a naked mole-rat as glabrous. In botany, a leaf without any tiny hairs or fuzz is considered glabrous. Similarly, a person with a freshly shaved head has a glabrous scalp. The word comes from the Latin word glaber, meaning "smooth or bald." This term is often used in both botany and anatomy to describe organic surfaces that are completely smooth and hairless.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Glabrous, glā′brus, adj. smooth: having no hairs or any unevenness.—adj.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various
Glabrous perennials from fascicled tubers, with pinnately compound leaves.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa
C. verticillàta, L. Glabrous; leaves divided into 3 sessile leaflets which are 1–2-pinnately parted into narrowly linear or filiform divisions.—Damp soil, from Ont. and Mich. to Md., Ark., and southward.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa
Glabrous, somewhat spinescent, 5–10° high; leaves thin, oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate at both ends, often serrulate; drupe elongated-oblong, usually pointed.—Wet river banks, S. W.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa
Glabrous throughout, erect, branching; leaflets 3–9, linear to oblong; spikes globose, the subulate setaceous bracts much shorter than the acutely toothed calyx, petals white.—Kan. to Tex.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
