Definitions

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

  • noun A partial wig or hairpiece worn to cover a bald spot.
  • noun A curl or lock of hair worn during the 1700s as a topknot on a periwig.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A curl or artificial lock of hair, especially on the top of the head or as a sort of crowning feature of a periwig; a periwig having such a top-knot: hence, an artificial patch of hair worn to cover a bald spot or other defect.

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

  • noun A little tuft; a curl or artificial lock of hair.
  • noun A small wig, or a toppiece of a wig.

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

  • noun A wig of false hair worn to cover a bald spot, especially as worn by a man.
  • noun obsolete A little tuft; a curl or artificial lock of hair.
  • noun obsolete A small wig, or a toppiece of a wig.

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

  • noun a small hairpiece to cover partial baldness

Etymologies

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

[French toupet, diminutive of Old French toupe, tuft of hair, from Frankish *top.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1727, from French toupet ("small tuft of hair, forelock"), from Middle French toupet ("small tuft of hair, forelock"), from Old French toupet ("small tuft of hair, forelock"), diminutive of toupe, top ("tuft of hair"), from Frankish *topp (“summit, crest, tuft of hair”), from Proto-Germanic *tuppaz (“summit, crest, tuft of hair”). Cognate with Old Dutch topp (Dutch top, "top"), Old Frisian top ("summit, crest, tuft of hair"), Old English top ("summit, crest, tuft of hair"), Old High German zopf ("end, summit, tuft of hair"), Old Norse toppr ("tuft of hair, forelock"). More at top.

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