Hairball

Definition: Hairball

Hairball

Noun

1. A compact mass of hair that forms in the alimentary canal (especially in the stomach of animals as a result of licking fur).

Specialty Definitions: Hairball

Domain	Definitions
Computing	Hairball n. 1. [Fidonet] A large batch of messages that a store-and-forward network is failing to forward when it should. Often used in the phrase "Fido coughed up a hairball today", meaning that the stuck messages have just come unstuck, producing a flood of mail where there had previously been drought. 2. An unmanageably huge mass of source code. "JWZ thought the Mozilla effort bogged down because the code was a huge hairball." 3. Any large amount of garbage coming out suddenly. "Sendmail is coughing up a hairball, so expect some slowness accessing the Internet.". Source: Jargon File.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Synonyms: Hairball

Synonyms: hair ball (n), trichobezoar (n). (additional references)

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Crosswords: Hairball

Specialty definitions using "hairball": mail storm. (references)

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Modern Usage: Hairball

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	Sit, hairball! (Hill Street Blues; writing credit: Steve Bello; David Black)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Hairball

Domain	Title
Music	Cough It Up: the Hairball Story (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Familiar Quotations: Hairball

Author	Quotation
Christina Rossetti	Hope is like a hairball trembling from its birth...
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Hairball

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
hairball	52
cat hairball	31
hairball remedy	13
hairball treatment	8
hairball symptom	5
feline hairball	4
band hairball	3
hairball online treatment	3
hairball online remedy	3
orbiting the giant hairball	3
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Hairball

Language		Translations for "hairball"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Pig Latin		airballhay.(various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Hairball

Derivations
	Words beginning with "hairball": hairballs. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Hairball" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Haibel, Haribul, Harilal. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: Hairball

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-b-h-i-l-l-r"
	-1 letter: barilla.
	-2 letters: bharal, labial.
	-3 letters: brail, brill, hilar, laari, labia, labra, lahar, libra.
	-4 letters: abri, alar, alba, aria, aril, baal, bail, ball, bill, birl, blah, haar, hail, hair, hall, harl, hila, hill, lair, lari, liar, lira, raia, rail, rial, rill.
	-5 letters: aah, aal, aba, aha, ail, air, ala, alb, all, arb, baa, bah, bal, bar, bra, ill, lab, lar, lib, rah, ria, rib.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-b-h-i-l-l-r"
	+1 letter: hairballs.
	+2 letters: bilharzial.
	+4 letters: behaviorally.
	+5 letters: lamellibranch.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.