Does pelón/pelona mean bald or hairy?

Question

I have heard pelón (or the feminine pelona) used to both refer to someone who has no hair and someone who has a lot of hair. Is there any way of distinguishing whether pelón means bald or hairy, or is context the only indicator?

Answer 1

According to the RAE, pelón means someone who has little or no hair, and that it means "with a lot of hair" in Ecuador.

A topic on Wordreference.com confirms this, so does looking the word up on Wordreference.

So I think you can go on using pelón safely to say "bald or with little hair".

Answer 2

We use peluda which means 'hairy' in Spanish. Pelon is used for someone that is bald. I've never heard pelona used as hairy but I'm sure some latinos use it as an informal way of saying 'hairy' in Spanish. It's definitely understood used in context. I mean, I would understand it once I grasped what was being said. Trust me, as latinos here in the US the Spanish language is constantly being changed/updated with very informal forms of the use of the language and Spanglish is also a new form of speaking. I personally hate it as it's destroying the romantic form of it but once explained it's pretty much understood and a given that's what the local form of speaking or understanding the Spanish language in certain areas will be.