Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A head of white-blond hair resembling tow.
- n. A person with such hair.
- n. A sandbar or low-lying alluvial island in a river, especially one with a stand of trees.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- tow + -head (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The towhead was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the middle of the river, but I didn't lose no time; and when I struck the raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it.”
“The watchman shot out of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine back with power, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a 'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico!”
“The towhead was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the middle of the river, but I didn’t lose no time; and when I struck the raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it.”
“towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of”
“a 'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of”
“His eyes are the spitting image of Jack's and, except for the fact he is a towhead, his resemblance to his famous great grandfather is striking.”
“The boy, Theo, was a tall lanky towhead one year older than Alice.”
“Noah was fishing off our porch with three boys on each side of him, his towhead as conspicuous as a single scoop of vanilla ice cream in a bowl of dark chocolate.”
“Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), the filmâs hero, is a frail twelve year-old towhead whose meek appearance masks ferocious anger.”
“It trashed our magnetic laser net, barbed wire is useless, napalm a treat, can't evade it, can't divert it, only this little boy can stop it; big blue eyes, mustard on his T-shirt, this adorable towhead with the discount dirt bike and the horny mom; only Jeffrey Joshua and his fuzzy teddy bear, Mr. Bundy, stands between us and galactic oblivion; can he ...?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘towhead’.
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
Looks like a digraph, but isn't
mishap, mishear, boathouse, courthouse, chophouse, ungainly, anthill, pothole, haphazard, upholstery, hothead, upheaval and 16 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Peppering my vocabulary
reconcile, positively, towhead, bit, fuck, cavalier, uppity, petit bourgeois, vile, cursory, banal, verbose and 13 more...
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Blond
fair, honey, platinum, dishwater, tawny, peroxide, sun-bleached, strawberry, flaxen, ash, towhead, white and 4 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for towhead.
johnmperry He was tall, slim-hipped, hairlessly muscled in the chest and back. towheaded and perpetually bronzed as those of Norwegian extraction can be. Sep 16, 2008
chained_bear Ha ha ha!! Great sentence!
I think you're right about the bucolic innocence. That's definitely been the connotation whenever I've seen the word (which isn't often, but often enough that I don't think it's completely obsolete). Sep 8, 2008
rolig You're right, c_b. I think I have usually encountered this word, in its adjectival form, in the phrase "towheaded children," often in some context that implies bucolic innocence. I don't expect anyone would say, "The towheaded youth was sniffing glue under the bridge." Sep 8, 2008
bilby Ah. Daisy Duck then ;-) Sep 8, 2008
chained_bear I hear it today, but it almost always is in reference to a child or young person. I've actually never heard it in reference to anyone over 18, or even 14 for that matter. Sep 8, 2008
rolig No, she's not bilabially alliterative. But then she's not really a platinum blonde, either. A true towhead has hair that is more white than yellow. Sep 8, 2008
bilby How about Pamela Anderson? Sep 8, 2008
rolig I heard this word a fair bit growing up in the 1960s. I had a friend with pale yellow hair who was frequently described as towheaded, especially by older folks like my grandmother. So I expect this word was more common in the first half of the 20th century and eventually gave way to the sexier, more fashionable "platinum blonde". I can't imagine Marilyn Monroe or Brigitte Bardot (were they all bilabially alliterative?) ever being described as "towheads". Sep 8, 2008
bilby Never heard it. Sep 8, 2008
betsyshane I love that you and I are the only ones to list this word, tow. Dec 6, 2006