hairdress

English

Etymology

From hair +‎ dress.

Noun

hairdress (countable and uncountable, plural hairdresses)

1. (countable) A hairstyle.
   • 1938, Laurene Hempstead, Look Your Best: A Guide to Feminine Style and Beauty, page 13:

     Just as the close, tight hairdress emphasizes and enlarges the face, so the large, loose arrangement that creates a large frame for the face makes it seem smaller by contrast .

   • 1943, Yamanaka & Company, Collection of Chinese and other Far Eastern art:

     Statuette, fashioned from grayish black terracotta, depicting Princess holding flower jar; short shoulder jacket extending over free flowing robe, exposing upturned sandals; chignon hairdress; traces of red and white pigments with earthy incrustations.

   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:

     For the port, the voice, the smell, the hairdress, were seldom the same, from one day to the next, […]

   • 1999, Martin Klingbeil, Martin G Klingbeil, Yahweh Fighting from Heaven:

     It is wearing an Egyptian hairdress, but no crown is distinguishable.

   • 2016, Clara Hallard Fawcett, Dolls - A Guide for Collectors:

     One way to judge is to compare the hairdress of the doll under discussion with pictures of the lady at about the time the doll was made.

2. (uncountable) The process or act of styling hair.
   • 1938, Robert W. Masters, Lillian Decker Masters, The Curtain Rises, Plays to Produce, page 281:

     The play is laid in the period when English society paid a great deal of attention to hairdress.

   • 1951, Adelaide Laura Van Duzer, Benjamin Richard Andrews, The Girl's Daily Life, page 315:

     In hairdress, as in clothes, do not be a slave to fashion.

   • 1966, An Introduction to American Archaeology: South America, page 266:

     Considerable attention has been given to hairdress in these, with long "page-boy" coiffures shown in modeling and scoring.

Verb

hairdress (third-person singular simple present hairdresses, present participle hairdressing, simple past and past participle hairdressed)

1. To dress or style hair.
   • 1971, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jump bad: a new Chicago anthology, page 71:

     "Monsieur," Francina told Mrs. Sill with the utmost tact, "is not licensed to hairdress or manicure pets. His professional aides are limited to slightly higher mammals — er — people. I am terribly sorry, madam."

   • 1993, United States, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Fiscal, Economic, and Social Crises Confronting American Cities, page 296:

     I can tell you that in three cities in New Mexico there were enough hairdressers trained to hairdress in 16 States the size of New Mexico.

   • 2016, Rebecca De Havalland, His Name Is Rebecca:

     I worked any hours I could at other things to reduce the number of hours I had to hairdress.