hairy

1. Annoyingly complicated. "DWIM is incredibly hairy."

2. Incomprehensible. "DWIM is incredibly hairy."

3. Of people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert,

and/or incomprehensible. Hard to explain except in context:

"He knows this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry

about." See also hirsute.

The adjective "long-haired" is well-attested to have been in

slang use among scientists and engineers during the early

1950s; it was equivalent to modern "hairy" and was very likely

ancestral to the hackish use. In fact the noun "long-hair"

was at the time used to describe a hairy person. Both senses

probably passed out of use when long hair was adopted as a

signature trait by the 1960s counterculture, leaving hackish

"hairy" as a sort of stunted mutant relic.

4. topology hairy ball.

[Jargon File]

(2001-03-29)