Hairless means having no hair, or having very little hair. A hairless cat, like a Sphynx, has smooth skin where most cats have fur. Some dogs are naturally hairless too, though they might have small tufts on their heads or paws.

People can be hairless in different ways. Babies are born mostly hairless except for the hair on their heads. Some adults lose their hair and become bald. Other people remove hair on purpose: swimmers sometimes shave their arms and legs because being hairless in the water can make them slightly faster.

The word often appears in nature and science. Hairless mole rats live underground in Africa and have wrinkly, pink skin with barely any fur. Scientists study hairless mice in laboratories because their skin is easy to observe.

When describing something as hairless, you're usually comparing it to something that normally would have hair. A hairless peach would seem strange because peaches typically have that soft fuzz. The contrast is what makes the word meaningful: hairless matters most when hair is expected but absent.