Also camel-hair.
1. The hair of the camel. (But cf. CAMEL-YARN.)
c. 1325. Metr. Hom., 10. Wit camel hare was he cledde. Ibid., 41. Al men wist that knew sain Jon, That he hauid camel har him upon.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 3. Joon was cloþid wiþ camele heer.
1611. Bible, Matt. iii. 4. The same Iohn had his raiment of camels haire.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, s.v., Camel’s-hair is much longer than sheep’s wool, and often as fine as silk.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V. (1887), 67. A camel’s-hair scarf.
2. The long hairs from the tail of a squirrel, used to make artists’ paint-brushes. Also attrib., as in camel(’s) hair brush, pencil.
1771. Smeaton, in Phil. Trans., LXI. 206. Take a middling camel’s hair pencil.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 347. He could not procure camels’ hair pencils.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Camel-hair Pencil, a small brush used by painters in water-colours, made of badgers’ hair, camel’s hair, or other suitable material.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 295. Brushes made of red sable, and also the squirrel—or ‘camel hair,’ as it is called.
