hairlore

English

Etymology

From hair +‎ lore.

Noun

hairlore (uncountable)

1. (rare) Knowledge about hair; hair folklore.
   • 1979, Robert Coover, Hair O' The Chine: a documentary film script; [ill. by Robin McDonald]., Bruccoli-Clark Layman:

     "Smoot documents his ... ah ... problem, one might safely say, with a three-volume history of hairlore, in which it is shown that abundant hair has always symbolized vitality, virility, the will to triumph, and its lack, poverty and impotence.

   • 1988, Remar Sutton, Body worry, Penguin (Non-Classics) →ISBN

     Barbers are the priests of hair lore, so you may listen to what they've learned from any confessionals, but don't automatically take their word as correct.

   • 1992, Norma J. Roberts, Columbus Museum of Art, Elijah Pierce, woodcarver, University of Washington Press →ISBN

     More than a mere ornamental surface, hair and hair preparation are elements of an essential body of emic material referred to as African American hairlore, and it can be a near metaphysical index to one's very soul, being, psychology, […]

   • 2002, Timothy S. Jones, David A. Sprunger, Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations, Western Michigan Univ Medieval:

     Baldness also has a further symbolic connection with one's restoration to grace. Giles Constable's magisterial study of beard- and hair-lore in the Middle Ages demonstrates that the shaving of one's hair could signify 'a separation from […]

   • 2010, Robert Baron, Nick Spitzer, Public Folklore, Univ. Press of Mississippi, →ISBN, page 112:

     […] as much to my strong belief in the diaspora as a heuristic construct for interpreting much of African American expressive invention as it does to my larger, shared fascination for the powerful dynamic of hair-lore in African diaspora everyday life.