You saw the three alternative constructions below in the post on describing eye colour.
[i] Capillus meus cānus est. My hair is grey.
[ii] Capillum cānum habeō. I have grey hair.
[iii] Capillus mihi cānus est. [dative of possession] I have grey hair.
Read this short text which uses two of those constructions.
Plūs quam mīlle capillōs habeō. [i] Capillus meus niger est. Capillus agricolae horridus est. [ii] Nōnnūllī capillum album habent. Nōn habeō barbam, nam puerī barbās nōn habent.
I have more than a thousand hairs. My hair is black. The farmer’s hair is dishevelled. Some people have white hair. I don’t have a beard, for boys don’t have beards.
plūs quam: more than
mīlle: thousand
Note the use of the plural capillōs because the speaker is stating the specific number of hairs on his head. The other references to hair in general are in the singular.
Cuius capillus longus est? Capillus Brutī longus est.
Whose hair is long? Brutus' hair is long.
Cuius capillus horridus est? Capillus Iūliae horridus est.
Whose hair is dishevelled? Julia's hair is dishevelled.
Other useful vocabulary when describing hair:
barba: beard
barbātus: bearded
calvus: bald
Barbam (nōn) habeō. I (don’t) have a beard.
Vir barbātus est. The man is bearded = The man has a beard.
Senex calvus est. The old man is bald.
A way of practising some of the vocbulary and phrases used to give physical descriptions is to write a few sentences about a friend or family member. The examples below show some different ways of expressing the same ideas.
Mihi est ūnus fīlius. Nōmen eī Iūlius est. Quīnque annōs nātus est. Barbam non habet quod puer parvus est! Oculōs caeruleōs habet. Capillus fīliī meī flāvus et curtus est.
Mihi est ūna fīlia. Nōmen eī Iūlia est. Fīlia mea septendecim annōs nāta est. Puella alta est. Oculī eī fuscī sunt. Capillum longum nigrumque habet.
The wealthy Romans paid a lot of attention to their appearance. The first image shows an ōrnātrīx, sometimes rather loosely translated as a 'hairdresser' but the term more accurately refers to a female slave who beautified and adorned their owners, working to create elaborate hairstyles, arranging clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, and perfumes, in fact anything to embellish their owners.
The English word 'barber' is, via French, derived from barba (beard) whereas the Latin word for somebody who cuts people's hair and beard is tōnsor [m] or tōnstrīx [f]. That word, in fact, does exist in English in the rather high-brow and antiquated phrase: tonsorial parlour, meaning the same as a barber's shop.
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