一根鬍鬚寬的差距
一根鬍鬚細到幾乎沒有寬度，於是英文拿它來當「最小的距離」來量。這一族不是在講毛，而是把毛的細拿來形容兩件事之間剩下的那條縫：小到再多一點點，結果就翻過去了。這兩個說法都是固定用法，whisker 不能換成別的毛髮字。
noun · B2
If you win or lose by a whisker, you win or lose by a very small amount, so the two sides were almost equal.
以些微之差贏／輸
核心畫面
You can picture a whisker as one thin, stiff hair standing straight out from the side of an animal's face. It is long enough to see easily, yet it has almost no width at all. Both halves of that picture do work in the word: the hair itself, and the fact that a hair is as thin as a thing can be. From the hair come the hairs on a man's face and the thin line drawn out of a box on a graph; from the thinness comes a gap so small that only a hair fits into it.
whisker 可以想成一根從臉側直直伸出來的細硬毛。它長得看得見，寬度卻幾乎等於零。這兩件事後來各自被拿去用。從「…更多收起
whisker 可以想成一根從臉側直直伸出來的細硬毛。它長得看得見，寬度卻幾乎等於零。這兩件事後來各自被拿去用。從「毛」這一邊，長出人臉上的鬍子，也長出統計圖上那條伸出去的細線。從「細」這一邊，長出「只差一根毛寬」的那種極小差距。From the word’s history
The noun comes from the verb whisk plus -er, that is, 'something that whisks' — something that sweeps quickly across. The stiff hairs beside an animal's mouth, which brush through the air as it moves, were named from that quick sweeping motion.
這個名詞可以追到動詞 whisk（快速掃過）加上 -er，字面上是「會掃動的東西」。動物走動時，嘴邊那幾根硬毛正好在空氣裡掃來掃去，名字就這樣定了下來。
Wiktionary entry for whisker, supplied in the evidence packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:747557082:47567): 'Inherited from Middle English wisker, whisk (verb) + -er.'
From the picture
圖表上借來的細線
這一族回到毛的形狀，而不是毛的細。統計圖上那條從方塊兩端伸出去的線，看起來就像貓臉上伸出來的一根鬍鬚，於是直接借用了名字。這是新增的補充義，LDOCE 沒有收，證據來自 Wiktionary 的統計學義項。
noun · C1
In statistics, one of the thin lines that reach out from the box in a box plot, showing how far the numbers spread towards the lowest and the highest values.
（盒鬚圖的）鬚線
Also in this word
noun · B1
One of the long, stiff hairs that grow out from the sides of the mouth on a cat, a mouse, a rabbit and many other animals. It is almost always used in the plural.
（動物的）鬍鬚
noun · B2
One of the hairs that grow on a man's face. In the plural, someone's whiskers are the hair growing on his cheeks and chin.
（人臉上的）鬍子