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Glite Dictionary
🐾 A cute animal 🐱 A hair mass 🧶 A furry ball
furball

furball

1 4.0
A ball of hair that a cat coughs up
  • noun
  • /ˈfɜrˌbɔl/
translation icon : bola de pelo
  • I noticed my cat gagging and realized she was about to bring up a furball.
  • cough up a furball

Examples

  • SHE’S GONNA COUGH UP A FURBALL.

    Warrior of the Lost World (1983)

  • You mean that guy in there, coughing up furballs, is a genius?

    Drop Zone (1994)

  • That little furball we sent to the sleeping car is missing!

    Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark (2019)

  • "Now I'll have to clean that up, you fat furball!

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Oh, those Crocs will be coughing up some big furballs.

    Blinky Bill the Movie (2015)

  • Or the one for "coughin' up a furball without the statutory 10-second choking sound to warn all present of the imminence of yunting"?

    Blog text (5)

  • After eating too quickly, my cat often coughs up a furball from her stomach.

  • When cleaning the house, I found a furball under the couch that my cat had coughed up.

Synonyms

hairball
vsfurball
20 3.2

A small ball of hair in an animal's stomach that cats cough up

is coughed up from the stomach rather than remaining inside the intestines

Surface Forms

furball singular
furballs plural

Morphology

furball = fur + ball (transparent) = fur + ball

The sense denotes a literal ball/ mass of fur, directly composed from 'fur' + 'ball'.

Etymology

Furball is simply fur + ball, which means a 'ball' of 'fur'. Cats groom themselves and swallow loose hair, which can form a ball in their stomach that they cough up, so furball means the hair ball a cat brings up.