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Apart from our palms and the soles of our feet, all human skin is covered with hair.

What is the word for the fine hair on a human being’s skin?

Photo of fine hair on a shoulder

I would be especially interested in what you would call it on the shoulder of an adolescent girl — that is, skin that we normally perceive as “hairless” —, in non-medical terms.

“Vellus hair” is of course the correct answer, but it seems to me that the average person would not know what that term means. “Peach fuzz”, on the other hand, seems to apply mostly to the face; that is, it denotes longer vellus hair in a place that has terminal hair in most men and many women. “Down” also seems to denote longer hair, both vellus and very soft and light terminal.

At this point it seems to me that there is no word for this kind of hair, probably because mostly we are unaware of it, and that you would have to describe it, possibly as “(very) fine hair”.

Sorry for the low image quality. Googling for an image of this is surprisingly hard. (But please don’t replace this image with one showing a different body part.)

7 Answers7

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The picture looks like vellus hair, which is the very light hair seen on children and sometimes adult women. That's what the picture looks like. You can read more information about vellus hair at Wikipedia.

The word for the hair that covers adult bodies (not including the hair on our heads) is androgenic hair. For more info, you may again refer to Wikipedia.

These are the correct terms; however, in English, we commonly use hair to refer to any hair on our body, though we sometimes distinguish that below the neck by calling it body hair. The type of hair in your picture, appearing on the face of a prepubescent boy, is also known as peach fuzz.

Interesting to note that in some languages there are two everyday words for "hair," one for that on our heads and one for that on our bodies.

tchrist
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Rusty Tuba
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  • I've never heard anyone use the term body hair. A person can be really hairy, in case he has a lot of hair on his body. Also, an everyday term is to reference the hair by saying 'the hair on my/his body/head/face/chin/neck/arm/back/leg/foot/toe, (or the plural equivalents, if there is one), etc.' – pazzo Dec 09 '14 at 17:15
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    "Body hair" is very common in North America. Not sure about GB and elsewhere. A google search returns a ton (and not just obscure fetishists). – Rusty Tuba Dec 09 '14 at 17:27
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    Agree with Rusty Tuba. The term "body hair" is used in American English to differentiate between hair on the head and the rest of the body. As far as the queston, I almost always hear this kind of hair be called "peach fuzz", although I've also heard some people call it a "milk mustache" when the hair is on the upper lip. – UnhandledExcepSean Dec 09 '14 at 19:17
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    Body hair is perfectly common and unremarkable in BrE as well. I can't speak for Antipodean, SA, or Indian English, but I can think of no reason it shouldn't be perfectly normal there as well. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 09 '14 at 19:17
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    If you aren't writing a scientific paper for biologists, I wouldn't expect your target audience to know what "vellus hair" is without defining it. Not common in spoken or written English in America anyway. – UnhandledExcepSean Dec 09 '14 at 19:21
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    The poster didn't indicate that he wanted a word that was "common in spoken or written English." I decided to give several scientific and non- options in any case. – Rusty Tuba Dec 09 '14 at 19:22
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    Vellus was admittedly the first word that came to my mind. I think I'd use vellus more naturally than peach fuzz. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 09 '14 at 21:13
  • Vellus is admittedly not in my vocabulary. Peach Fuzz, plus one. – Mazura Dec 10 '14 at 02:37
  • Body hair, facial hair is perfectly common (@JanusBahsJacquet). In the Indian sub-continent, Vellus would be misunderstood for phallus. – adityasrivastav Dec 10 '14 at 19:32
  • @adityasrivastav Vellus and phallus sound completely different in most dialects of English—such a confusion would only be possible, I surmise, in the Indian subcontinent. Even there, would most native English speakers not distinguish v and f? – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 10 '14 at 20:17
  • While the phrase "body hair" may be technically correct, it carries connotations of coarse, visually obvious hair, not "peach fuzz". Try a Google image search for "body hair" for example, then search for "fine body hair" and see the difference. – barbecue Aug 30 '15 at 00:15
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The word down can be used to mean fine hair. From Dictionary.com: "a growth of soft, fine hair or the like".

Patrick Wood
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    Not normally used for human hair in BrEng. – A E Dec 09 '14 at 14:58
  • @AE Is there another non-technical, everyday word used in BE? –  Dec 09 '14 at 16:37
  • @what, not that I can think of. You could say that some people have "downy hair" in some places, but just down by itself sounds like duck/pillow-related to me. Although ODO disagrees with me: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/down "Every single women on the planet has 'down' on her face- in fact, it's what gives some women that 'perfect complexion' look." – A E Dec 09 '14 at 16:46
  • "Every single women on the planet" Total nonsense, and even contains a spelling mistake. In fact I can't even find that sentence on the page. – Lightness Races in Orbit Dec 09 '14 at 17:17
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit Scroll down to definition 2, usage 1.2, and it's under "more example sentences". – Gob Ties Dec 09 '14 at 17:36
  • @Geobits: Aha! This "hiding" mechanism breaks Ctrl+F; what a shame. Anyway yes the quality of that example has me doubting the quality of the page in general. – Lightness Races in Orbit Dec 09 '14 at 17:41
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    I have never heard 'down' used of human head hair (as the Oxford link suggests it can be) though I've often heard it used to describe very light body hair, on the arm, say, or the cheek. – TimR Dec 09 '14 at 21:37
  • @TRomano I've always understood 'down' to mean that very fine hair that women often have on their faces (as well as the duck thing, of course); not head hair. – peterG Dec 09 '14 at 21:49
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    Just because you've never heard a word used doesn't mean it isn't used. "Down" means fine hair. I use it... in BrEng. – aychedee Dec 09 '14 at 22:01
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I believe it is called vellus hair.

Vellus hair is short, fine, light-colored, and barely noticeable hair that develops on most of a person's body during childhood. Exceptions include the lips, the back of the ear, the palm of the hand, the sole of the foot, some external genital areas, the navel and scar tissue. The density of hair – the number of hair follicles per area of skin – varies from person to person. Each strand of vellus hair is usually less than 2 mm (1/13 inch) long and the follicle is not connected to a sebaceous gland.

Frank H.
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10

HAIR LINE:

In the womb, fetuses are covered in tiny hair called lanugo. Shortly after birth, babies grow vellus, or fine, unpigmented hair, across the body.

When puberty hits, vellus hair give way to coarser terminal hair in places such as the underarms and genitals. The longer, thicker hair on scalp, eyebrows and eyelashes are also terminal.

Misti
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4

At the risk of lowering the tone, I have heard bum fluff and pant beard used, depending on the precise location on the owner.

But I am given to understand that these terms are rarely used in formal medical contexts.

chiastic-security
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For a non-medical term as requested by the OP I'd call the hair on that girl's shoulder as being almost invisible hairs. You're only able to detect them in strong backlight, such as sunlight.

“Human Hair,” Vlado Valcović informs us that two basic types of hair occur in man: vellus hairs: the very tiny (almost invisible) hairs that help make skin feel silky

Mari-Lou A
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If you really want to convey the idea of this specific type of hair without using technical terms or slang, I think fine body hair is as good as you're going to get. It's not evocative, but searching for it will show it's widely used by people who are trying to describe exactly what you're talking about.

tchrist
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barbecue
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