Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also thatching, top thatch) the human hair.

1609		Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 15: Nature therefore has plaid the Tyler, and giuen it a most curious couering, or (to speake more properly) she has thatched it all ouer, and that Thatching is haire.
1822		‘A Modern Mill’ in Egan Anecdotes of the Turf, the Chase etc. (1827) 220: Sam [...] twisted his mauleys ’mongst Goliath’s thatch.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Sept. 4/3: Sambo shortly after displayed his woolly nob, having, on this occasion, taken care to strip his thatch of all superfluous locks.
1870		Fife Herald 31 Mar. 2/2: An extremely narrow and low brow — with the eye brows meeting the ‘thatch’ on his head.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 17/3: Stanley is blessed with a head of white hair. His own reason for the premature paleness of his tonsorial thatch is the suffering and hardship he endured in the great forest.
1895		‘’Arry on Harry’ in Punch 24 Aug. 90/1: Do keep yer ’air on, old pal, if you’ve got any thatch.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Oct. 12/3: Those interested in hair-culture point to the top-thatch of two local handsome brunettes as samples of the system, old and new respectively.
1902		C.L. Cullen More Ex-Tank Tales 22: To convince myself that he wasn’t twisted beneath his thatch.
1905		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘They Begged To Differ’ Sporting Times 15 Apr. 1/3: What looked like an easy catch, / A ‘skyer,’ right above his thatch, / Descended on his ‘sniffer.’.
1910		Spokane Press (WA) 22 Sept. 7/3: One old bowser [...] swung on my roof with her mush and put my thatch to the cleaners.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 269: While the sniders themselves walk about as big as a sucking millionaire and clobbered up to the thatch in iky rig.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘Doctor Goosegrease’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 16: It’s good for the thatch, if you’ve got a bald patch.
1940		N. Mitford Pigeon Pie 88: The old gentleman [...] always seemed to have a wonderful thatch.
1947		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 15 Mar. 21: The proper thatch that will make my conk gleam.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 76: The old bar waiter came drifting by [...] I shook my head and he bobbed his white thatch.
1979		H. Leonard A Life (1981) Act I: An employer knows he can trust a man with snow on his thatch, a man that’ll do a day’s work and not go chasing bits of stuff.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 241: ‘What did she look like?’ ‘Nice thatch’.

2. a woman’s pubic hair.

1833		‘The Thatched Cot’ in Lummy Chaunter 94: Yet I fear’d to avail myself of the delight, / To brush from its thatch the thick hanging dew.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) IX 1824: My fingers [...] lingered high up on her thighs, made acquaintance with the hairy thatch.
1900		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 69: I fired off my cannon into her thatch of hair.
1927–41		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 35: His ballocks grew rough / And wrecked his wife’s muff, / And scratched up her thatch in the scrimmage.
1972		E. Shrake Strange Peaches 57: Her thatch was like a sparrow’s nest.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 187: To [...] return to the quim whiskers, common terms include [...] the nostalgic (thatch).

3. a wig.

1824		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 7 Nov. 324/3: How twinkled with joy every bright Irish ogle, / When into the ring Pat with glee shy’d his thatch.
1841		Bell’s Life in London 22 Apr. 4/4: Mason first flung his ‘thatch’ into the ring, and was loudly cheered.