pelage

pel·age  (plj)

n.

1. The coat of a mammal, consisting of hair, fur, wool, or other soft covering, as distinct from bare skin.

2. Something felt to resemble the coat of a mammal: "The hardwoods were a soft pale green in the dark pelage of the conifers" Peter Matthiessen.

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[French, from Old French, from peil, pel, hair, from Latin pilus.]

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Pelage term for the fur, hair, or wool of wild animals, collectively. 1828.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

pelage - growth of hair or wool or fur covering the body of an animal coat mammal, mammalian - any warm-blooded vertebrate having the skin more or less covered with hair; young are born alive except for the small subclass of monotremes and nourished with milk fur - dense coat of fine silky hairs on mammals (e.g., cat or seal or weasel) wool, fleece - outer coat of especially sheep and yaks hair - a covering for the body (or parts of it) consisting of a dense growth of threadlike structures (as on the human head); helps to prevent heat loss; "he combed his hair"; "each hair consists of layers of dead keratinized cells"