conk n.2
1. pomade; hair grease.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 9 Sept. 11/1: Brother Jones has cropped his hair short to save the [cash] he once spent on ‘Konk’ and now his moss isn’t glossy any more . | |
| ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. |
2. hair that has been straightened through the application of a special mixture.
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 19 Oct, 20: This is my conk, and I don’t give a honk. | |
| ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 36: This George Brown was strictly an icky, drape-shaped in a fine brown zoot with a pancho conk slicker’n mine. | |
| N.Y. Age 19 Aug. 9: [headline] me’n my konk. | |
| Corner Boy 14: The little man with the conk tossed Jake a dollar. | |
| Die, Nigger Die! (con. late 1950s) 24: He’d drop by the school and be vined down. He was clean, jim. Had him a conk then and he knew he was ready. | |
| Carlito’s Way 12: You had a pimp name of Red Conk on account of he conked his hair red. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 44: French cuffs . . . man had a conk and shit. | |
| Portable Promised Land (ms.) 156: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Chump. Crunk. Conk. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] [He] rocks a “conk” he’s probably had since doo-wop night at the Shrine Auditorium. |
In compounds
1. (US) one who uses hair oil on artificially straightened hair, thus adj. conk-headed.
| letter in N.Y. Age 29 Dec. 9/4: Nothing nauseates me more than the sight of these ‘conkheads.’ I often wonder how much barrel of grease they must ladle onto their skulls. | |
| S.R.O. (1998) 39: He was short, dark, conk-headed. |
2. (US black) a black person.
| ‘Decoy’ in Tell Them Nothing (1956) 40: A conkhead who don’t know he’s living says [etc.]. [Ibid.] ‘I Didn’t See a Thing’ 141: Two men. Bug-Eye and a conkhead. |
(US black) a black hairstyle that has been straightened.
| ‘Gang Members & the Police’ in Bordua Police 85: ‘Most times if you ain’t got a hat on, they say, “‘Conk job! Get in the wagon! You a hood!”’. | |
| ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 17: Conk job, n. A straightened lightly waved hair-style, also called a ‘process’. | |
| ‘Atomic Dog’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 29: My man was chemically processing hair – mixing down wave, curl, and conk jobs for all the slick splib hustlers. |