Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A woman's hairstyle formed by sweeping the hair straight up from the forehead into a high, turned-back roll.
  • noun A man's hairstyle with the hair brushed up from the forehead.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A head-dress worn by women about the middle of the eighteenth century; also, a mode of dressing the hair by rolling it off the forehead over a cushion, later in use.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A crimson or pink color; also, a style of dress cut low and square in the neck; also, a mode of dressing the hair by drawing it straight back from the forehead over a roll; -- so called after the Marchioness de Pompadour of France. Also much used adjectively.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A woman's hairstyle.
  • noun A man's hairstyle of the 1950s.
  • noun A crimson or pink colour.
  • verb To style hair into a pompadour

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb style women's hair in a pompadour
  • noun French noblewoman who was the lover of Louis XV, whose policies she influenced (1721-1764)
  • noun a hair style in which the front hair is swept up from the forehead

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After the Marquise de Pompadour.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

  • That a girl barely fourteen should have decided views on the subject of dress, and insist upon wearing what she called a pompadour and having her belts extremely pointed in front, was surprising to Aunt

    The Pleasant Street Partnership A Neighborhood Story Mary F. Leonard

  • On second look, what I thought was a huge pompadour is in fact just his cap.

    Meat Lovers Only! « Awful Library Books 2010

  • Search hairstyle hair piled high swooped back and discover that this is called a "pompadour."

    Wired Top Stories Ken Denmead 2012

  • The origins of the name pompadour are as difficult to pin down as the color.

    The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe 2006

  • The dark closely cropped hair, worn in the so-called pompadour or military style, the pale, saturnine features, the manner and general bearing all loudly proclaimed his Gallic nationality.

    The Mask A Story of Love and Adventure Arthur Hornblow 1903

  • Derek, once again, has an enormous pompadour, which is really adorable on him.

    BuddyTV 2009

  • Her pompadour is a wet-felted wool ball that I glued white Curly Hair ™ to, then trimmed back, and added blush.

    beetlegrass 2009

  • NCIS' Michael Weatherly has been growing his hair to the "pompadour" look he sported back in 2003 for a March episode that explores the origins of his Agent DiNozzo.

    Keck's Exclusives: NCIS Goes Old School 2011

  • The Exis got them in the habit of wearing what I suppose you could call a pompadour, and to my mind, that didn’t sit well with their overall look.

    PAUL IS UNDEAD ALAN GOLDSHER 2010

  • She was dressed in a simple gray cotton frock with neat lawn collar and cuffs, and her hair was raised in a lustrous "pompadour," a wide comb traversing it behind and combs at the sides of her head upholding it in front.

    A Fountain Sealed Anne Douglas Sedgwick 1904

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