whisker

1. 1.

   a very small distance or space

   “they escaped by a hair's-breadth”

   “they lost the election by a whisker”

   Synonymshair's-breadthhairsbreadthhair

   Broadersmall indefinite quantity
2. 2.

   a long stiff hair growing from the snout or brow of most mammals as e.g. a cat

   Synonymsvibrissasensory hair

   Broaderhair

1. 1.

   furnish with whiskers

   “a whiskered jersey”

   Synonymsbewhisker

   Broadersupply

Other forms of whisker

plural

whiskers·

past tense

whiskerred·

present participle

whiskerring·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about whisker

What does whisker mean?

whisker means "a very small distance or space". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in whisker?

whisker has 2 syllables: whis-ker. The stress falls on "whis". In IPA it is /ˈwɪskɚ/.

What is another word for whisker?

Close synonyms include hair's-breadth, hairsbreadth, hair, vibrissa, sensory hair. 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 whisker a common word?

whisker 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.