Kaal

bald, bare [adjective] [kaal] Iconspeaker_3

"Kaal" can refer to a landscape without trees, a head without hair, a room without furniture, a piece of worn out fabric or a bare wall. Check out this DWOTD for an example of an expression referring to the meaning "bald".

Examples:
– "Wat een kaal, kleurloos landschap, er is geen boom of grassprietje te zien."

("What a bare, colourless landscape, there’s not even one tree or tiny blade of grass.")

– "Als je in het leger gaat, scheren ze je hoofd kaal."  Kaal_2
("If you join the army, they’ll shave your head.")

– "Val jij op kale mannen of mannen met een flinke haardos?"
("Do you fancy bald men or men with a head of hair?")

– "Veel kale vrouwen dragen een pruik." 
("Many bald women wear wigs.")

– "Ik ben net verhuisd dus mijn nieuwe appartement ziet er nog wat kaal uit."
("I’ve just moved so my new apartment still looks a bit empty.")

– "Ik ga een grote spiegel aan die kale muur hangen."
("I’m going to put up a large mirror on that bare wall.")

– "Je kunt die jas echt niet meer aan, hij is helemaal kaal op de ellebogen."
("You really cannot wear that coat anymore, it’s all bare on the elbows.")

Related words:
– Kaalheid: baldness [noun] [de kaalheid, <no plural>].
– Kalend: getting bald [adjective].
– Haardos: hair of head [noun] [de haardos, de haardossen].
– Pruik: wig [noun] [de pruik, de pruiken].

4 thoughts on “Kaal

  1. In English, we have bald-faced lies (blatant lies) and bald tires/tyres (a dangerous situation where automotive tires have no tread left on them and are completely smooth-surfaced). We also use “bald” in the contexts above. 🙂

  2. Is haardos a “hair of head” (a single strand of hair) or a full “head of hair”? The former is closer to “kaal” and the latter is the opposite. Here I’m using “strand” to mean a fibril; another meaning is “shore” (the same as the Dutch word “strand”).
    Or is this splitting hairs? 😉

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