wig n.2
1. the pubic hair of either sex.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 83: He dresses her wig in a new fashion way / [...] / She constantly smiles on her doating dear puff / And thinks he can never be tumbled enough. | |
| ‘The Wig And The Poll’ in Flash Chaunter 35: You’ll see wigs in his front or a pole at his door [...] With success to the Wig, and the stiff standing pole. | |
| ‘The Rare Old Root’ in Cuckold’s Nest 8: A song to the root, that rare old root [...] Here’s success and renown to its wig of down, / And its seven or eight inches long. [Ibid.] 29: She shews to him her coal black wig. | |
| Peeping Tom (London) 38 149/1: [The] fine woman, who in her fall, discovered something which he jocosely declared resembled Lord Mansfield’s wig which he [i.e. a a thief in court] had seen before. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) X 2013: I [...] felt her hard thighs and buttocks again, scratched the wig on the motte. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | |
| Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words. | |
| Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 131: Pubes […] velvet, wig, wool. |
2. a dignitary, lit. one who wears a wig for professional reasons, usu. a judge or barrister.
| Caleb Williams (1966) 222: Because I laugh at assizes, and great wigs, and the gallows. | |
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 24 Apr. 101/2: [of boxing judges] The Navvy did not want for bottom; but when the chance appeared against him [...] as well as to give the Wigs no trouble about the matter, the John Bull Fighter with much feeling declared Kent should not fight any longer. | |
| Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 317/1: Wig, a judge. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Dead Bird (Sydney) 26 Oct. 3/3: We’d better burst up this meeting [...] there are too many wigs here. | |
| et al. DAUL 237/1: Wig. (Scattered areas in the U.S.) A judge, especially in criminal courts. | |
| Und. Nights 176: You could see the old Wig beaming like an advertisement for breakfast food. | |
| Vinnie Got Blown Away 78: Normally only the wigs got conferences. | |
| Indep. on Sun. Rev. 4 June 25: The 13 wigs were bobbing about laughing and cracking jokes. |
3. the hair.
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 Jan. 3/1: The old dame seized the broom and attempted to brush his wig with it. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 11 May 500: Me wig had to be washed. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 14 Mar. 5/5: Squirts R. kids himself on a new bike going to see his bit of dog's meat with [...] paint and powder on his dial, and curling tongs in his wig . | |
| On Broadway 29 Nov. [synd. col.] Hull and Wallace are the latest Capitol feudists, getting in each other’s wig over their conflicting [...] policies. | |
| Book of Negro Folklore 488: wig : Head, hair. Mary’s got a righteous wig. | |
| ‘The Winds of Change’ in Clarke Harlem, USA (1971) 317: Don’t tell me that wavy-wigged-Waddell’s gonna wash out his beauty tresses. [Ibid.] 319: I dug my wig in the mirror. | |
| Black Jargon in White America 87: wig n. 1. a person’s hair. | |
| Campus Sl. Oct. 10: tight wig – a well-cared for hair style. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Gayle 103/2: wig n. hairstyle. |
4. (US black) hair that has been artificially straightened.
| (con. 1930s–60s) Juba to Jive. |
5. (US black) the head, the brain or its functions.
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 44: Knock thy wig, chick, for the hypes thou hast put down. | |
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 1: In spinning a platter of some very popular band leader, I would come on something like this: ‘Jackson, here’s that man again, cool, calm and a solid wig, he is laying a frantic scream that will strictly pad your skull, fall in and dig the happenings.’ Which is to say, the orchestra leader is a real classy singer and has a voice that most people would like. | |
| letter 27 Mar. in Joint (1972) 58: All of it keeps my wig in turmoil. | |
| Hiparama of the Classics 7: They Called This Cat The All Hip Mahatma because his wig was so cool. | |
| Drylongso 21: I really do think that there is something wrong with this man’s wig. | |
| ‘Dolemite’ 🎵 But I want ya to light you up a joint and take a real good shit and screw your wig on tight / And let me tell ya about the little bad muthafucka called Dolemite. | |
 | ‘Next Up?’ 🎵 Get round there samurais and flicks / JaySav put his whole rambz in your wig. | |
| Widespread Panic 97: I chugged Claire’s absinthe. Wormwood whipped my wig. | |
| ‘Stuck in the Mud’ 🎵 I’ll stuff the clip, rise the stick and touch his wig (Baow). |
6. (W.I.) a male haircutting style that supposedly resembles a judge’s wig. The hair is cut into a peak at the front and there is no sharp razor line at the back. Those requesting such a cut would tell the barber, ‘Try me’.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
7. (US black, also wigger) an eccentric, a mad person.
| Vice Trap 55: Graemie boy’s the coolest wig here. [Ibid.] 74: Christ, he is a wig, isn’t he? | |
| Jazz for Moderns 21: wig: a person who is very crazy. Sometimes called wigger. | |
| Black Jargon in White America 87: wig n. […] 2. a crazy person; very unusual person. |
8. (US) something of importance.
| in Profile of Youth 235: Negro teen-agers on Chicago’s South Side show a flair for colorful language and imaginative clothes [...] Bright baseball caps are ‘the wig’ with cords or dress suits. | |
| Ladies’ Man (1985) 229: It was a wig, but not a major wig. |
In phrases
1. (US drugs) to be intoxicated by a given drug.
| Square Peg 154: ‘What was it you called him? A viper?’ ‘His wig’s tight half the time from tea’ . |
2. (orig. US black) to compose one’s throughts, thus get/have one’s wig loose, to be confused.
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 57: I want you to light you up a joint and take a real good shit and screw your wig on tight, / and let me tell you about the little bad motherfucker called Dolomite. | |
| (con. 1930s) Night People 70: Like they all say when their wigs are tight. | |
| Hilliker Curse 7: The movie spooked me. My wig was loose. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 237: I parked across the street and got my wig tight. |
In compounds
(Aus.) the head.
| Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 5 Sept. 3/1: Slight exchanges followed on the side of the wig block. |
(US black) the altering of a natural crinkly black head of hair into a straight process n. (1) style.
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
1. (US teen) eccentric, unbalanced; in n. use (see cit. 1960) as a fig. ‘place’.
| Hiparama of the Classics 17: City Hall has flipped, and swung to a drunken zoo! / And all of you cats have goofed to wig city. | |
| Catalog of Cool 🌐 in Wig City (descriptive phrase): Caught in the township of the flipped, just outside sanity and peopled by mad daddies and moms. | |
| ‘Secrets and Lies’ Pt 5 on Skeeter63.org 🌐 ‘You told him? You’re all right?’ Buffy nodded. ‘I’m fine, Giles.’ She turned away and headed for the kitchen to get a soda. ‘Of course, that doesn’t mean he took it well. That whole soul thing?’ she called out over her shoulder. ‘Wig city.’. |
2. a psychiatric institution.
| Roadkill 144: The cat would keep me company in wig city just like Van Gogh had a cat in the mental hospital to keep him company . | |
| Spanking Watson 65: Hauled off to wig city by burly dykes in white nurse's uniforms. | |
| Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock 189: Roky, one of the original crazy guys, wound up in wig city with a patch over his middle eye. |
(orig. US black) a wig; a hairpiece.
| ‘High Heeled Sneakers’ 🎵 Put on your high heeled sneakers and put your wig hat on your head. | |
| Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 45: wig hat – A hair piece for a fox. | |
| Homeboy 23: Out poked Candy’s spunsugar wighat, baby blues agog. | |
| In The Cut 54: wig hat, wig. | |
| If Your Hair Falls Out, Keep Dancing! n.p.: Look at Molly dance, here she comes / Wearin’ her wig hat and shades to match. |
(US black) a psychiatrist.
| Set This House on Fire 408: Well, dreams, you know. I never put much stock in them. [...] those naval wig pickers in San Francisco used to try and worm a few of them out of me. | |
| Religious Systems and Psychotherapy 369: It has become popular in our day to call psychiatrists all kinds of names [...] wig picker, head shrinker, nut cracker, witch doctor, couch doctor, nerve doctor. | |
| Strip Tease 89: ‘Come on, wigpicker. Trau-ma-tized’ [...] In a shaky but defiant voice, the psychiatrist spelled the word perfectly. | |
| You’re Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger 66: Only I drew a lady wig picker. Fortyish, attractive, with what I took to be a Viennese accent, and extremely sharp. | |
| Riverfront Dreams 92: He was a loner, a hermit, what a wig picker would have labeled a misanthropic. |
(US black) a shock, a surprise [snatch one’s wig ].
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 290: People in my life gon cry this edver come out. It gon be a wig-snatch on some folks. |
(US black) a wonderful, admirable individual.
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 9: I’m not hep to the why ‘fur’, but for me you are a wig tightner, for you I would knock fowl soup. |
(US black) an idea.
| Really the Blues 158: I didn’t have enough wig-trigs to explain why. | |
| Golden Runaways 185: All you yard-dogs got no wig-trig how much a nigger feels he's the better man. | |
| Vintage Ford 32 38: Hit by a wig-trig during a warm spell last week, I traipsed out to the barn and sorted out various parts from the stock room. |
1. (US black, also fracture one’s wig) to feel excited, enthusiastic or furious.
| New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 253: blew their wigs (adj.): excited with enthusiasm, gone crazy. | |
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 11 May 19: The agent has almost blown his wig over her. | |
| (con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 134: I’ll just have to go to my mother. She’ll probably blow her wig when she sees me. | |
| Book of Negro Folklore 483: fracture your wig : To get angry. Love can make you fracture your wig. | |
| Standford Short Stories 8 27: ‘I don't know!’ Travis shouted. ‘How do I know? I ain’t no doctor!’ [...] ‘You don't have to blow your wig,’ Jaeger said. | |
| ‘Yet Princes Follow’ in Black! (1996) 190: I blasted then, really blew my wig! | |
| (con. 1960s) Night People 99: It used to amuse me to hear them getting warm and blowing their wigs. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 53: To blow up is to lose one’s temper, as is to blow a fuse or a gasket and to blow [one’s] top or cork or stack or wig. | |
| White Thought 49: Don’t blow your wig, scholar. Let the beer fiddlers play. | |
| Get Rich Quick 54: ‘Give the money back, clear out, and that’s the finish. Otherwise, both of you are dead.’ Max spoke then. ‘Well, dad, don’t blow your wig just yet. Hear this’. |
2. vi. to lose one’s mind.
| ‘New Blowtop Blues’ 🎵 I’ve got bad news baby, and you’re the first to know, / [...] / Well I discovered this morning that my wig is about to blow. | |
| Killer’s Wedge (1981) 13: It looks like you’ve blown your wig, that’s what it looks like. What the hell’s the gun for? |
3. (drugs) vt. of drugs, e.g. marijuana, to intoxicate heavily .
| Hoodlums (2021) 52: ‘Goodies,’ Lisette said [...] ‘Careful,’ Martin said. ‘These are not cut. They’ll blow your wig’. |
used of a poseur, ‘all talk and no action’.
| Newcastle Courant 14 June 1/2: If we have a War, it is such brave Fellows as Cavally that must save us, not those pretty Smock-faced Fellows that are all Wigg and Waistcoat. |
(US black) to go mad.
| Teen-Age Mafia 169: He must have cracked his wig to have thought that he could get away with it. |
1. to lose one’s temper.
| ‘Sweet Marijuana Brown’ in Murder at the Vanities [film script] She plants, you dig – she’s flipped her wig. / Sweet Marijuana Brown. | |
| Beat Generation 32: Rajah hadn’t flipped his wig. | |
| Gidget Goes Hawaiian 112: A gorgeous package like Abby flipping her wig. | |
| Gumshoe (1998) 25: Don’t flip your wig, buster. | |
| Lush 65: Help! [...] The guy’s flipped his wig. | |
| Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY) 16 Mar. 35/2: ‘Phimbean has popped his cork, flipped his wig, blown his stack’. | |
| AutoCAD 2013 for Dummies n.p.: If you’re having problems getting the look you want, don't flip your wig. |
2. to lose one’s sanity; in weak use, to become emotional, e.g. through love.
| (con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 249: Maybe like the chick’s flippin her wig. | |
| letter 5 June in Proud Highway (1997) 616: My lawyer flipped his wig on the coast and came out here to avoid being committed. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 181: Suppose one of those big boogs flips his wig, and does something screwy? | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 138: Her terror was so great that she just flipped her wig right there and then. | |
| ‘Has Anybody Seen my Cool?’ in Love and Dandelions 36: I’ve always kept my feet on the ground, / Until that little girl came around, / And then I flipped my wig. | |
| Onyalum Retribution 365: Maybe he had wanted to be confronted so that he could tell someone about his beloved Admiral who had flipped his wig. | |
| 29 Yrs from Home 63: Don’t flip your wig, man. You don’t have to yell. I'm just two feet away. |
(US black) to be drunk.
| (con. 1930s) Night People 70: Like they all say when their wigs are tight. [Ibid.] 118: To have a ‘tight wig’ is to be high or drunk. |
to remain calm.
| Conant 59: ‘All right, Jake,’ said Mike. ‘Keep your wig on’. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 638: from ca. 1910. | |
| Stump 198: Alright, cunt! Keep yer fuckin wig on, will yer! | |
| Kidnap in the Caribbean n.p.: ‘Keep your wig on,’ said Jimmy. ‘I was only joking’. |
(US black) to comb one’s hair.
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 22 Aug. 7/7: Know [sic] my wig — (comb my hair). | |
| Jive and Sl. |
(US black) to amaze, to delight, to thrill.
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 87: To ‘lift the wig’ [...] is an indication that one is suddenly ‘surprised,’ ‘overjoyed,’ or ‘thrilled’ at something potent, unbelievably fresh, or ‘surprising’ as to automatically ‘lift the wig.’. |
(orig. US black) one who is without inhibitions or open to new ideas; thus loosen one’s wig v., to behave crazily.
| Jazz for Moderns 20: loose wig: a completely uninhibited really way-out musician. | |
| (con. 1950s) Straight Life 177: We had a saying: ‘To loosen your wig.’ When you got uptight and really nervous, then you’d ‘unscrew your cap,’ and [...] get silly and nutty and make weird noises. |
(drugs) to lose one’s mind from drug intoxication.
| Getting Straight 110: You gotta give six months notice to lose your wig? | |
| Underground Dict. (1972). |
(US) to go mad.
| Man with the Golden Arm 40: Her old lady got scared by a rat so bad she slipped her wig. | |
| Limo 90: ‘Between you and I, the Big Guy’s wig has slipped [...] The Big Guy has got squirrels in his attic’. |
(US) to lose emotional control.
| Candy (1970) 153: Me being thirty-four, and him a young, soulful-looking cat, snapping his wig like that on account of my tight slick goodie. | |
| (con. 1940s) Man Walking On Eggshells 155: A cat could only take so much of that kind of stuff without snapping his wig. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 20: Naturally the studio was quick to snap its wig. |
(US Black) to alarm, to amaze .
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 10 Feb. 7/1: Hi Billy — I hope you won’t dig me as being a drag in layin’ this line on you, but these old peepers of mine picked up a sight that really snatched my wig. |
(US) to suffer pain, to feel depressed, to be at the end of one’s tether.
| Corner Boy 45: ‘My wig is split,’ Scar moaned. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 43: I wondered what ‘overwrought’ meant. It sounded like a word you’d use when somebody had split his wig. |
1. (US prison) to hit someone quickly and hard in the head.
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Split Your Wig: A quick punch to the head. (TX). | |
| Last Burn in Hell 12: If you’s a fuckin’ weezo we gonna split yo muddafuggin’ wig. | |
| mydogharriet.blogspot.com 26 Sept. 🌐 So your little jitterbug has the rabbit in her, and thinks its funny to split your wig. |
2. (US black) to hit hard; to kill.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 split someone’s wig Definition: to kill someone; kick someone’s ass with intention to kill. Example: Yo, Kenyan got his ass beat down!! that nigga, B Dogg, nearly split his wig, yo! | |
| ‘Life Is 2009’ 🎵 Cause if you tell on us, we’ll be splittin your wig. |
1. to give someone else marijuana; to render someone intoxicated.
| Really the Blues 218: This cat’s playin’ ketch-up and I got to tighten his wig. | |
| Drugs from A to Z (1970) 241: tighten somebody’s wig To give him some marijuana to smoke. |
2. to delight.
| Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 6: Here’s a cat that lays a group of ivory talking trash and strictly putting down a gang of jive. The situation is much mellow, it’s many fine and understand gates it will tighten your wig. | |
| Chicken (2003) 174: When you git tired of awll that prissy pussy, you come awn down, and we tighten your wig for ya. |
(US black) to think fast.
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 103: I’m trigging my wig to see if I can dig where I latched onto you before. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. a fool.
| Agreeable Surprise (translation) II ii: Damn the old wig-block. |
2. (also wig box, wig stand) the head.
| ‘Luke Caffrey’s Ghost’ in Limerick 4: For if but an inch dat you stir, / De devil your wig-blocks shall batter. | |
| Paved with Gold 190: Hammer took advantage of the pause [...] to go up to his corner and once more get the ‘liquid rouge’ wiped of his ‘wig-block.’. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 214: wig stand the head [...] Syn: wig box. |
a wig-maker, a hairdresser.
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 266/2: Wig-faker (Low. London, 18 cent. on). Hair-dresser. |
In phrases
the pubic hair.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
(orig. Irish) an argument, a fight.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Real Life in Ireland 15: In the twinkling of a blind piper’s eye there were ‘wigs on the green.’. | |
| Our Antipodes II 332: Had he remained and fought well, there would unquestionably have been ‘wigs on the green.’. | |
| Broken to Harness I 267: I’ll wager there’ll be ‘wigs upon the green.’. | |
| McIvor Times (Heathcote, Vic.) 2 June 2/6: ‘[U]nless you turn those Cockney lads off your land there will be wigs on the green, not the wigs of game, but human wigs’. | |
| Deacon Brodie I tab.III iii: There’ll be wigs on the green to-morrow, Badger! | |
| Sporting Times 15 Mar. 1/5: ‘Talking of ugly babies, if you could see my cousin Dora’s last, you would think this one quite a beauty!’ It was then that the wigs were on the green. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 12 May 1/7: Not wigs, but surplices and L.O.G.T. regalia ‘on the green! | |
| Sons O’ Men 187: And won’t there be wigs on the green to-morrow? | |
| Truth (Brisbane) 7 Feb. 2/2: When the ‘Comet’ gets to business, there'll be wigs upon the green. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 1 May 2nd sect. 9/1: They Say [...] That had the pair gone on, there would have been wigs on the warpath. | |
| Cockney At Home 68: Jewey and Ginger raked up that old tyke scandal, and wanted to have a mill on the green. | |
| Sub 74: I got clear away. There would have been wigs on the green if I hadn’t. | |
| Ulysses 337: But Tommy said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the ball and if he took it there’d be wigs on the green. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 20 May 45/9: Oh Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that’s going round? / There’ll soon be wigs and other things on Erin’s emerald ground. | |
| Down All the Days 55: Leaving Mother all thumbs and trembling lest Father chance to go upstairs and discover the jail-break. ‘There’ll be quare jigs on the green if he does!’ she would whispier. | |
| Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 23: Wigs on the green, Francie! We’ll have them Prods swimmin’ for the Mull of Kintyre in a week! | |
| (con. 1920s) Emerald Square 104: ‘There’ll be wigs on the Green,’ he said, ‘skin and hair flying.’. | |
| Sun. Trib. (Dublin) 2 July n.p.: But there’ll be wigs on the green if ever I catch them [BS]. |
In exclamations
a mild excl.
| Lectures on Art of Writing (1840) 85: Can I stand this? no – blow my wig, I’m hungry as a starving pig! | |
| Hereford Jrnl 4 Feb. 4/4: Keep off, for if you come athwart my hawse, blow my wig but I’ll cut your cables! | |
| ‘Shadrack, The Orangeman’ Universal Songster I 27/1: Plow my vig, for vat you plow me up, vy didn’t you look sharp yourself. | |
| Morn. Post 15 Sept. 4/1: Blow my wig, he has done us. | |
| Operative (London) 14 Apr. 12/3: But as for the lights, blow my wig if they were not all burning as right as a trivet. | |
| Bristol Mercury 5 Dec. 6/3: And blow my wig and buttons, but it puzzles me, shure-ly. | |
| Huddersfield Chron. 23 Nov. 4/5: Blow my wig if ever I heard such a speech in all my life. |
see under dash v.1
a mild excl. of surprise, irritation etc.
| Morn. Post (London) 2 Dec. 3/4: My wig! What bad grammar that were t’other night? | |
| ‘The Dandy Cat’s-Meat Lass’ in Universal Songster I 17/2: My vig! vat a vicked cat’s meat lass. | |
| Eng. Spy I 413: My wigs and eyes – Dowton’s a better part than mine. | |
| Oliver Twist (1966) 161: ‘Oh my wig, my wig!’ cried Master Charles Bates. | |
| Handley Cross (1854) 60: ‘My vig!’ exclaimed Mr Jorrocks. | |
| ‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 25 July 3/3: My wig and feathers! they were going at it hammer and tongs. | |
| London Life 44: My vig and viskers, ain’t he volloping the donkey! | |
| Sporting Times 13 May 4/4: He rubbed his hands in gleeful anticipation of some interesting work. And he got it. For that was an over! My wig! |