toupee
(tuːˈpiː, ˈtuːpeɪ, ˈtuːpiː)
Also 8 toupé, tupee, toppee, 9 towpee, 20 toupée.
[app. ad. F. toupet: see next.]
a. A curl or artificial lock of hair on the top of the head, esp. as a crowning feature of a periwig; a periwig in which the front hair was combed up, over a pad, into such a top-knot, worn by both sexes in the 18th c.; also the natural hair dressed in this mode; (now the usual sense) a patch of false hair or small wig to cover a bald place.
| 1731 Fielding Grubstreet Op. iii. xv, Love in his lac'd coat lies, And peeps from his toupee. 1742 Pope Dunc. iv. 88 Whate'er of dunce in College or in Town Sneers at another, in toupee or gown. 1753 in Fairholt Costume in Eng. (1885) I. 376 A tye-wig is banished for a pigeon-winged toupée. 1770 Barretti Journ. fr. Lond. to Genoa I. 137, I hate to see a little girl with a tupee. 1778 F. Marion in Harper's Mag. Sept. (1883) 546/1 The Lt. Col. recomends to every Soldier to have..the fore top short without toppee & short at the sides. 1843 Macaulay Ess., Mme. D'Arblay (1887) 740 He stalked about the small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee. 1862 Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit. II. No. 4586 Fronts, partings, and toupées on the same novel principle. 1973 M. Amis Rachel Papers 81 My hair hung on my head as if it were a cut-price toupée. 1980 V. S. Pritchett Tale Bearers 20 He is having his toupee fixed and his hair dyed. |
| attrib. 1817 Coleridge Satyrane's Lett. iii. 241 In the portrait of Lessing there was a toupee perriwig. |
† b. One who wears a toupee; a person of fashion; a beau, a spark, a buck.
Obs.| 1727 Pope, etc. Art of Sinking x. 94 Then oh! she cries, what slaves I round me see? Here a bright Redcoat, there a smart Toupee. 1747 Gentl. Mag. Nov. 537/2 Here swiftly move toupee's, in spruce undress. |
Hence
touˈpeed a., wearing a toupee.
| 1847 R. Chambers Traditions of Edinburgh 45 Their toupeed and deep-skirted beaux. |