Other forms: whiskers
A whisker is one of the long stiff feeling hairs beside a cat's nose. They are sense organs, not decoration.
A cat's whiskers are roughly as wide as its body and tell it whether a gap is passable, which is why cutting them is cruel. Seals, rats and many other mammals have them. The plural also means a man's facial hair, especially side whiskers. English has two idioms from the word: winning by a whisker means winning by the narrowest margin, and the cat's whiskers means the very best of something.
1nounwhiskerOne of the long stiff sensory hairs on an animal's face.
“The cat's whiskers brushed the doorframe.”
2nounsmallA very small margin.
“They lost by a whisker.”
3nounfaceOne of the hairs growing on a man's face, especially on his cheeks; nearly always plural.
“The old sailor had grey whiskers and a pipe that never left his mouth.”
Also accepted in games: whiskers
Middle English
wisker
English, today
whisker
Middle English wisker, whisk + -er.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA