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# whiskers

«whiskers» in Mova's school dictionary: **the long, stiff hairs that grow near the mouth and nose…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (whiskers — plural; one whisker)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Whiskers are the long, stiff hairs that grow near the mouth and nose of animals such as cats, dogs, mice and seals, used for feeling things around them. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#m1)

2) Whiskers can also mean the hair growing on a man's face. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#m2)

3) «By a whisker» means by a tiny amount: «we won by a whisker». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons whiskers are a sense adaptation: a cat's whiskers feel tiny movements in the air and help it judge whether it can fit through a gap; seals use whiskers to find fish in murky water. In everyday talk «by a whisker» means only just. In stories, characters may stroke their whiskers when thinking.

### examples

- The cat's whiskers twitched when it heard the mouse. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x1)
- Cats use their whiskers to feel if they fit through a gap. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x2)
- Seals find fish with their whiskers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x3)
- Grandad's whiskers tickled when he kissed me. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x4)
- We won the race by a whisker. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x5)
- Never cut a cat's whiskers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x6)
- The mouse had long whiskers and a pink nose. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x7)
- The Cat was laughing also, but tried to hide it by stroking his long whiskers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/#x8)

### note

Usually plural «whiskers»; singular «a whisker». Whiskers are not just decoration — cutting them can confuse an animal. «The cat's whiskers» (old-fashioned slang) means something excellent.

### In the corpora

- [Seal whiskers are so sensitive that a blindfolded seal followed a fish's water trail that was more than 30 seconds old.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/27-dolphins-porpoises-and-seals/17/)
- [Walruses find clams on the dark seabed with hundreds of sensitive whiskers and suck them out of their shells.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/169-the-arctic-ocean-walruses-bowheads-the-400-year-shark-and-the-unicorns-tooth/5/)
- [A sturgeon has five rows of bony plates along its body and four whiskers under its snout to feel for food.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/374-ukraine-s-waters-danube-delta-pelicans-black-sea-dolphins-sturgeon-and-gobies/17/)
- [Off with his whiskers!» (collar = grab), and by the time the court settles, the cook has gone.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/22-alice-who-stole-the-tarts-2/31/)
- [Something small and bright twinkles inside it, and a face grows round it: brown and small, with whiskers.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/64-willows-ch10-part4-into-the-horse-pond/14/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «whiskers» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/whiskers/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.