pompadour

English

Alternative forms

• pompador (nonstandard)

Etymology

From French Pompadour, after Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), mistress of Louis XV.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɒmpədʊə/, /ˈpɒmpədɔː/
• IPA^(key): /ˈpɑːmpədɔːɹ/

Noun

pompadour (plural pompadours)

1. A women's hairstyle in which the hair is swept upwards from the face and worn high over the forehead.
2. A men's hairstyle of the 1950s.
   • 2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 17:

     Squat and perspiring, with a low pompadour and a thin black mustache, he was inevitably disheveled by evening.

3. A crimson or pink colour.
   • 1812, George Shaw, James Francis Stephens, General Zoology: pt. 1. Aves (page 409)

     […] head, neck, and whole under parts fine but very deep crimson or pompadour-colour […]

4. A corsage with low square neck.
5. A pattern for silk, with leaves and flowers in pink, blue, and gold.
6. (UK, military, slang, historical) A member of the 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot, an infantry regiment in the British Army, active from 1755 to 1881.

Synonyms

• (man's hairstyle): do, ducktail, quiff

Translations

woman's hairstyle

• French: banane (fr) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Verb

pompadour (third-person singular simple present pompadours, present participle pompadouring, simple past and past participle pompadoured)

1. To style hair into a pompadour
   • 1944, Skulda V. Banér, Latchstring Out‎^[1], page 33:

     But by mid-afternoon we had both grown tired of putting on and taking off the clothes my mother and Beata had made for Lillian Russell, and of taking down and pompadouring again the wig Beata had turned backside front so it should be long where ladies' hair was supposed to be long.