Word Confusion: Fur versus Hair

Plural for the noun: furs
Gerund: furring

Third person present verb: furs
Past tense or past participle: furred
Present participle: furring

Plural: hairs

Adjective:
Of or relating to fur, animal skins, dressed pelts, etc. ¹

Relating to the Fur or their language ²

Noun:
[Zoology] The short, fine, thick, soft hair of certain animals ¹

• The skin of an animal with fur on it
• Skins with fur on them, or fabrics resembling these, used as material for making, trimming, or lining clothes
• A garment made of, trimmed, or lined with fur
• [Heraldry] Any of several heraldic tinctures representing animal skins in stylized form

[British] A coating formed by hard water on the inside surface of a pipe, kettle, or other container

• A coating formed on the tongue, typically as a symptom of sickness or smoking

A member of a Muslim people of the mountainous and desert regions of south-western Sudan ²

[Mass noun] The language of the Fur, an isolated member of the Nilo-Saharan family, with about 500,000 speakers

Verb, transitive:
(British] Coat or clog with a deposit or thick layer ¹

Fix strips of wood to (floor joists, wall studs, etc.) in order to level them or increase their depth

To cover, line, or trim a garment, etc., with fur

[Often followed by up] To cover, become covered, or coat with a furlike lining or deposit

To clothe (a person) in a fur garment or garments

• A fine threadlike strand growing from the epidermis of a plant or forming part of a living cell
• A similar fine, filamentous outgrowth from the body of insects, spiders, etc.
• A pilus

Hairs collectively, especially those growing on a person’s head

Cloth made of hair from animals, such as camel and alpaca

[a hair] A very small quantity, amount, degree, measure, magnitude, or extent, etc.

• A fraction, as of time or space

A fur. became 660 standard English feet while the German feet was measured as 625 fur.

The fur. was fixed in length and was redefined in terms of newly standardized units back in 1266 and 1303.

Adjective:
I picked up my fur coat from summer storage.

He made a point of praising the Fur for their piety and took lessons in the Fur language.

Before that, Darfur was under the control of the indigenous Fur sultanate.

Noun:
Pete was a long, lean, muscular cat with sleek fur.

The trapper can sell his furs to the highest bidder.

They wore jackets made out of yak fur.

She has a parka with nylon fur around the hood.

Wolverine fur is ideal for edging the hood of a jacket, as it is resistant to frost.

I’d just seen her sitting in her furs.

She pulled the fur around her.

Vair is a processed squirrel fur that combines their grayish-blue backs with the white of their underbellies.

I’m terrified that there’s fur or scale, not just in kettles but in other hidden parts of the hot-water system.

Helen has developed a fur on her tongue.

When the kids got mad, they really made the fur fly.

She makes the fur fly when she types.

He believes that the non-Arabs in Sudan — an alliance of Southerners and marginalized groups in northern Sudan, such as the Fur — form a numerical majority and should dominate a secular, pluralist, and united Sudan.

Verb, transitive:
The so-called “bad” cholesterol furs up coronary arteries.

The drain could be concealed by furring out the original wall.

The beanie is lined with a plush, furlike liner and topped with a fake fur pom-pom.

“Whether feathered or furred, all of these animals belong to the same political species: the bird-dogger” (Ashworth).

I found the thick black hairs on his huge arms a huge turn-on.

Its scalloped leaves were edged with silver hairs.

It damages the cilia, tiny hairs that clear invading bacteria from the lung.

She was a woman with shoulder-length fair hair.

I have got to get to a hair salon.

“The alpaca, llama, and vicuña are three closely-related South American mammals, and they’re all used for (among other things) yarn made from their sheared hair” (ffcproducer).

His magic takes him a hair above the competition.

He lost the race by a hair.

1. 1300–50, Middle English, as a verb from the Old French forrer meaning to line, sheathe, from forre meaning sheath, is of Germanic origin.

   It’s noun form is also Middle English, furre as a derivative of furren meaning to trim with fur, from the Anglo-French furrer, the Old French fo(u)rrer, which originally meant to encase, a derivative of fuerre meaning sheath, from the Germanic and akin to the Old English fōdder meaning case, sheath, and the Old Norse fōthr, the Greek pṓma.

2. The Fur are the largest ethnic group in the Darfur region of western Sudan. They are also sometimes referred to by the names Fora, Fordunga, Furawi, Konjara, or Kungara.