Showing results for hair follicle. Search instead for hair follicles.

hair follicle

American

noun

Anatomy.

a small cavity in the epidermis and corium of the skin, from which a hair develops.

hair follicle British

noun

a narrow tubular cavity that contains the root of a hair, formed by an infolding of the epidermis and corium of the skin

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of hair follicle

First recorded in 1830–40

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.

See Examples For:

hair follicle

“And I think everyone’s universally saying there a lot of different kinds of decisions we do not want part of our game. Toenail offsides, hair follicle arguments.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026

But Tsuji says his study identified a "novel third cell type", called a hair follicle regenerative-supporting cell.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026

As of right now, dermatologists don’t know the root cause of FAPD, though they believe it might show up in midlife due to a decline in estrogen, which protects against hair follicle inflammation.

From Slate ● May 23, 2026

The skin contains two main types of adult stem cells: epidermal stem cells and hair follicle stem cells.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 7, 2025

It serves to form a sort of sheath which contains each hair, and is called the hair follicle.

From The Art of Living in Australia ; together with three hundred Australian cookery recipes and accessory kitchen information by Mrs. H. Wicken by Philip E. Muskett

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023