Dictionary

haar en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /hɑɹ/ (General-American)
• /hɑː(ɹ)/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Attested since the late 17th century, alongside Scots haar (“cold easterly wind; misty wind; cold fog or mist”). Perhaps ultimately from Middle Dutch hare (“cold wind”) or a related Low German word; compare Dutch harig (“windy; foggy, misty”), Saterland Frisian harig (“misty”). Alternatively, perhaps simply a northern English or Scottish variant of hoar, or a borrowing of Old Norse hárr (“hoary”).

Meanings

1. (Northern-England, Scotland, countable, especially, uncountable) Thick, cold, wet fog along the northeastern coast of Northern England and Scotland.
   • The traffic noise used to be constant, at times as thick as the haar, the sea fog that sometimes rolls in here from the North Sea. 2020, David Farrier, “The Insatiable Road”, in Footprints, 4th estate, →ISBN:
2. (Scotland, countable, especially, uncountable) A wind, especially one from the east, which blows in this fog.
   • [An] easterly haar was blowing in off the sea, the cold wind bringing with it a thick fog that crawled under the collar and clung to the skin. Ahead, the road disappeared as the fog hid anything on either side of the hedges save for the[…] 2024 February 29, Samantha SoRelle, The Gentleman's Gentleman, Balcarres Books LLC, →ISBN, page 168:
   • […] westerly haar, which wraps everything up in white wool, and blots out sea and sky, and chokes the depressed wayfarer-not to speak of the penetrating chill which even in June goes down into the marrow of your bones, and makes the[…] 1873, Mrs. Oliphant (Margaret), May. [A Novel.], page 73:

Forms

Deriveds

haary