I think you'll find that villi is still a correct term for the hairy bits of your hair cells in the cochlea,
PA. It's the villi or microvilli to give them the latest more common name, that get permanently damaged by excessive noise. I learned it 40 years ago in a two year course and examinations somewhat harder than I found most ATPL theory courses actually - Biology O'Level, and I got top grade
.
I was also quite good at Latin so unlike you I wasn't surprised 35 years ago that the term
villi was used to describe more than one than one type of cell. I see now that it isn't used so much now to describe auditory hair cells but if you Google for it you'll see what I mean.
Actually, at risk of splitting hairs further, and having been prompted by you and taken a look at it in Wikipedia, I see that they refer to something called the Organ of Corti now as a separate structure within or adjacent to the cochlea duct, and it is this that contains "hair bundles". It would seem this still isn't a very well understood part of the anatomy as any hearing loss patient will tell you. Best not to split hairs I think and just avoid all risks of damaging it ...