cathair

noun

1. (uncountable)The hair of a cat.

   “How can you tell a cat owner? all the little claw marks on their back...Or by the cathair that sticks to their suit.”

   “The conscientious Mrs. Fulgrove was driving away as he pulled into the barnyard, and he waved to her; the woman's scowl indicated that she had worked overtime because of the vast amount of cathair everywhere.”

   “Meditate on the steady drone and the rocking of the back and forth vacuum dance you do as you suck up the cathair, the ashes, the seeds, the stray leaves.”

   “Cat likes to brush against it and sun on the deck chair, the cushion is a mat of gray cathair.”

2. (countable)A single hair of a cat.

   “A pimpled chin, dark with cathairs, a mouthful of irregular teeth, were visible below helmet and goggles.”

   “The closed-door policy, he liked to explain, kept the cats out of his hair and the cathairs out of his typewriter.”

   “I'm sure they use the same stuff that sticks cathairs to clothes in paint. It's just as difficult to remove... […] [T]he first law of cathairs is they get everywhere, including where it's physically impossible, etc.”

3. An ancient Irish fortification of stone or earthwork.

   “Several cathairs which we have examined are not circular in plan, but appear to have been formed to suit the contour of the eminence upon which they stand; and others are of an oval form.”

   “There were probably other cathairs and duns on the Aran Islands which were not as sturdily built or not as well preserved as those that survived.”

   “‘On this island there are three cyclopean cathairs but their stones have been nearly all removed to build the modern little houses which are nearly in as rude a style as the Cahirs ever were.[…]’”