Glabrous means smooth, specifically having a surface without hairs or projections.
Glabrous means smooth, specifically having a surface without hairs or projections.
| Front | glabrous \GLAY-brus\ |
|---|---|
| Back | adjective Smooth; especially, having a surface without hairs or projections. ["Before them an old man, / wearing a fringe of long white hair, bareheaded, / his glabrous skull reflecting the sun's / light...." No question about it -- the bald crown of an old man's head (as described here in William Carlos Williams's poem "Sunday in the Park") is "a surface without hairs." Williams's use isn't typical, though. More often "glabrous" appears in scientific contexts, such as the following description of wheat: "The white glumes are glabrous, with narrow acuminate beaks." And although Latin "glaber," our word's source, can mean simply "bald," when "glabrous" refers to skin with no hair in scientific English, it usually means skin that never had hair (such as the palms of the hands).] "Wounds that involve the glabrous surface of the hand ideally are replaced with skin that possesses the same characteristics as the adjacent skin." |
Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.
Next card: Gest geste jest noun tale someone's notable adventures
Previous card: Maw china's noun symbolic theoretical center voracious hunger
Up to card list: Hard English Vocabulary