from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun An artificial covering of human or synthetic hair worn on the head for personal adornment, as part of a costume, or to conceal baldness.
transitive verb To scold or censure.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun A beast of burden, as a horse or an ass.
noun A sort of cake.
To rate or scold severely.
noun An artificial covering of hair for the head, used generally to conceal baldness, but formerly worn as a fashionable head-dross.
noun The full-grown male fur-seal of Alaska, Callorhinus ursinus. See cut ununder fur-seal.
noun The head.
To post a scout on the route of flight in a pigeon race, with a hen pigeon to attract the opponent's bird and retard his progress. Barrère and Leland.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
transitive verb Slang To censure or rebuke; to hold up to reprobation; to scold.
noun A covering for the head, consisting of hair interwoven or united by a kind of network, either in imitation of the natural growth, or in abundant and flowing curls, worn to supply a deficiency of natural hair, or for ornament, or according to traditional usage, as a part of an official or professional dress, the latter especially in England by judges and barristers.
noun An old seal; -- so called by fishermen.
noun (Bot.) See Smoke tree, under Smoke.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun A head of real or synthetic hair worn on the head to disguisebaldness; for cultural or religious reasons; for fashion; or by actors to help them better resemble the character they are portraying.
verb To put on a wig; to provide with a wig (especially of an actor etc.).
verb colloquial To upbraid, reprimand.
verb colloquial To become very excitable or emotional; to lose control of one's emotions.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun hairpiece covering the head and made of real or synthetic hair
noun British slang for a scolding
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Short for periwig.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Shortening of periwig, itself an alteration of French perruque.
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Examples
We may therefore suppose this wig [_shews a large wig_] to be a huge quarto in large paper; this is a duodecimo in small print [_takes the knowing head_]; and this a jockey's head, sweated down to ride a sweepstakes.
reesetee commented on the word wig
Originally periwig
March 7, 2007