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Borrowed from Latincalvus(“bald, hairless”) (from Proto-Indo-European*kl̥h₂wós, from *kalw-(“bald; naked”) + *-wós(suffix forming adjectives from verb stems)) + -ous(suffix forming adjectives from nouns, denoting possession or presence of a quality).[1][2]
Hubert had given me his passport, in great excitement. [...] Admittedly most old, bloated, calvous Germans could double for me, and even if he hadn't been doppelganger material, with the beard I had started growing and the two black eyes, you'd need x-rays to spot the difference.
1838, William Henry Harvey, The Genera of South African Plants, Arranged According to the Natural System, Cape Town: A. S. Robertson,, →OCLC, order 62 (Compositæ), tribe 4 (Senecionideæ), sub tribe 4 (Anthemideæ), division 4 (Athanasieæ), page 183:
LXII. MORYSIA. Cass. / Acheniumcalvous, terete, furrowed, wingless. [...] Glabrous shrubs, with scattered oblong, dentate, or entire leaves, and corymbose yellow flowers: closely related to Athanasia, from which they differ in the calvous achenia.
In almost every family enumerated, the per centage is in favour of naked or wingless seeds, remarkably so in Dipsaceæ, where 11 per cent. of species with calvous seeds are widely dispersed, while only 3 per cent. of those furnished with pappus enjoy as wide a range. Among the Compositæ the proportions are as 4·5 to 2·9 per cent. in favour of calvous seeds, by which it should follow that daisies were twice as diffusable as thistles or dandelion.
lacking most or all of one's hair — see bald, hairless
lacking bristles or pappuses
References
^ John Lindley and Thomas Moore, editors (1874), “CALVOUS”, in The Treasury of Botany: A Popular Dictionary of the Vegetable Kingdom; with which is Incorporated a Glossary of Botanical Terms, new and revised edition, part I (A–K), London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 203, column 1: “CALVOUS. Quite naked; bald; having no hairs, or other such processes.”
^ Compare “calvities”, in Mosby’s Pocket Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions, 6th edition, St. Louis, Mo.: Mosby, Elsevier, 2010, →ISBN, page 209: “calvities [...] [L, calvus, without hair], baldness. —calvous, adj.”
