hair seal

1. 1.

   any of several seals lacking external ear flaps and having a stiff hairlike coat with hind limbs reduced to swimming flippers

   Synonymsearless sealtrue seal

   Broaderseal

   Narrowerharbor sealharp sealelephant sealbearded sealhooded seal

   Part ofPhocidae

Questions about hair seal

What does hair seal mean?

hair seal means "any of several seals lacking external ear flaps and having a stiff hairlike coat with hind limbs reduced to swimming flippers".

What is another word for hair seal?

Close synonyms include earless seal, true seal. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hair seal a common word?

hair seal is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.