Meaning & use
dandruff
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Meaning
noununcountable
Small white flakes of dead skin that come loose from the scalp and show in the hair.
Grammar: Uncountable: it takes a singular verb and no plural form, e.g. 'Dandruff is common.'
Patterns
- have dandruff
- get rid of dandruff
- dandruff shampoo
- suffer from dandruff
He wears dark shirts, so his dandruff is easy to see.
A special shampoo can help if you have dandruff.
Dry winter air often makes dandruff worse.
Common combinations
- have dandruff
- Many teenagers have dandruff at some point.
- dandruff shampoo
- She bought a dandruff shampoo at the pharmacy.
- get rid of dandruff
- It can be hard to get rid of dandruff completely.
- suffer from dandruff
- He suffers from dandruff and scratches his head a lot.
- dandruff flakes
- Dandruff flakes were visible on his collar.
Synonyms and how they differ
- flakes
- A general word for small flat pieces; use it for dandruff only in informal speech, as it can mean other things too.
- scurf
- A more technical or old-fashioned word for the same flakes on the skin; rare in everyday talk.
Word family
- dandruffy adjective
- Informal and rare: covered with or resembling dandruff.
Commonly confused: dandruff or dry scalp?
dandruff vs dry scalp
A dry scalp is a cause of flaking, but dandruff specifically means the flakes themselves; the two are often used together but are not identical.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence:
Choose one answer.
'Dandruff' is uncountable, so it takes no article and no plural: 'She has dandruff.' The other options wrongly treat it as a countable noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dandruff”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.