Yeah, I know what you are thinking, what the hell is up with this title? Don’t worry, my wife thinks the same thing. This blog post might be my shortest, but it definitely has been something on my mind for an amount of time far greater than necessary.
I don’t know how this thought arose, but one day, I asked my wife, Emily, why are eyebrows not called eyebrow hairs? At first it started off as a funny ask, but then I started thinking about it more. It became serious. Okay, it didn’t really become serious, but I seriously looked into the definition of what a brow was. The definition (according to Merriam-Webster) of a brow is either: 1a) Eyebrow (ironically), 1b) Forehead, 2) The projecting upper part or margin of a steep place, or 3) Expression. So I clicked into the definition of eyebrow which stated: the ridge over the eye or the hair growing usually in a line or arch on the skin over it. This is when my questioning journey began.
When you think of hair on your body, how do you refer to it? Arm hair? Leg hair? Nose hair? Even eyelashes make sense, definition wise. So if all the hair on your body is described by the certain place it is located, how did the eyebrow hair get left out? To be defined as both the brow over the eye OR the hair on the brow over the eye just seems purely lazy. Maybe the people that came up with the definition were tired, maybe they didn’t think people would care, or maybe they didn’t think Sean Small would question the difference between the eyebrow and the eyebrow hair.
Usually when I have a quandary like this, I find out the answer and it is over within that same day. That didn’t happen with this particular search. I might never know (to be honest I haven’t done a deep deep dive into this, so if you have the answer as to why I would much appreciate it), but I think that both the eyebrow and the eyebrow hair should get the recognition they deserve. I’m also interested to hear about any other words that have made you ponder why they are what they are. Feel free to reach out if you do as I would love to discuss. I hope you have a great Friday, and you remember to give some love to both your eyebrow AND eyebrow hairs.
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