vibrissa
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English
Etymology
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /vɪˈbɹɪsə/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
vibrissa (plural vibrissae)
- Any of the tactile whiskers on the nose of an animal such as a cat.
- 1881, St George Jackson Mivart, The Cat, London: Murray, page 14:
- There are also long hairs inside each ear and sometimes on its tip, and about a dozen very long and strong hairs—the whiskers or vibrissæ— are placed on each upper lip.
- Any similar feather near the mouth of some birds.
- (anatomy, in the plural) The thick hairs found inside the nostrils of humans and other mammals.
- 2012, David W. Kennedy, Peter H. Hwang, editors, Rhinology: Diseases of the Nose, Sinuses, and Skull Base, Thieme, →ISBN:
- The vibrissae are coarse hairs whose follicles are located just within the nasal meatus. […] Vibrissae are present in most mammals, but their innervation and role in sensory function appears to be less pronounced in humans.
Derived terms
Further reading
Italian
Etymology
Noun
vibrissa f (plural vibrisse)
Further reading
- vibrissa in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana