white-haired

My teacher said you never say "white-haired" but "grey-haired" or "hoary-headed"? Is that true?
I suppose someone 100 years old must be "white-haired"?

Hi Coconutpalm,

Your teacher has some rather odd stylistic preferences.

Both 'white-haired' and 'grey-haired' are used in AE. "Hoary-headed" would confuse most people, and isn't seen much except in 19th century and older writing.

Perhaps what your teacher meant was that it is more common to hear someone described as grey-haired, but there is no reason why you cannot say someone is white-haired, in fact it is quite normal. Hoary-headed is a very archaic term that you would only expect to find in literature a few centuries old, unless someone is trying to be especially poetic!

Ah, you got there before me!

Thanks for your reply!
Now I can rest assured to use "white-haired".

As very, very few people actually have 'white' hair, maybe your teacher is thinking that it can be confused with the old term for a "favourite" or "darling" - a white-haired boy. That was my immediate thought, and although google doesn't throw out many examples, it is given in Collins English Dictionary (along with "white-headed boy", and in Chambers English Dictionary. It is even the first of two suggestions on WordReference's English definitions…


Aadjective
1 blue-eyed(a), fair-haired(a), white-haired(a)
favorite; "the fair-haired boy of the literary set"

2 gray, grey, gray-haired, grey-haired, gray-headed, grey-headed, grizzly, hoar, hoary, white-haired
showing characteristics of age, especially having gray or white hair; "whose beard with age is hoar"-Coleridge; "nodded his hoary head"