What does tow headed mean?
A towhead is someone who has very light blond hair. It's most common to describe blond children as towheads.
A true towhead has hair so light that it's nearly white, which is why most towheads are kids. Typically, blond hair grows darker as people age — even if you are blond as an adult, you hair will still be a darker shade of blond than it was when you were a young child. The word comes from the noun tow in the sense of "flax," which is usually a golden color.
More Info:
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What are your thoughts on this subject?
20 Comments
Howard Groopman
Harry Stephens, US apparently, as I learned it many years ago.
Patrick T
Specifically a very light blond.
Joyce Greenlees
Tow headed is used in Scotland, mostly to mean untidy hair. It’s probably not so common now but I do remember my gran using it when I was a child in the sixties. It is sounded like now not like toe.
bdkerr
Actually it is a child with white blonde hair.
Mic Fenst
"one of the lesser-known meanings of tow is a fiber made from flax, hemp or jute used to make thread."
AskMrsP
Never heard of that before!
JRW
Coral Harvey, don't you mean 'untidy'.
Actually blond and untidy.
teacherchicky
Coral Harvey, Tidy hair; I've never heard that definition and I have a Master's degree in English!? Interesting!
teacherchicky
White blonde hair! I was a blonde but my cousins were all tow headed, so I practically lived in our pool but they were easily sun burned, so they didn't have the tolerance to the sun that I had.
james parrillo
Harry Stephens, I may have heard it a few times, mostly to describe two young brothers that lived on the New Jersey/Pennsylvania border in the United States. Thank you, Christine, James' wife
Lynne Zeman
Tow head means a young someone with very, very light - almost white hair. But not gray. There are several other names given to us oldsters.
buhlemann
Harry Stephens, America - my mother used it to describe blond hair color little boy have when young, that often turns brown when they are older. She came from Boston. My father never used the expression, and he came from the Midwest. It may be a dialectical thing, but it does have its roots in Old English
Jonny Cooper
I've heard this term used to describe small children.
Louella Wilson
Oxford dictionary adds 'untidy hair' as an alternative to 'very light blonde'.
Merl Windsor
Harry Stephens, U S A
Denise Currie
William Laughlin, Thank you
William Laughlin
Denise Currie,
It is generally used to describe very fair haired children and has nothing to do with grooming.
A blonde child with neatly groomed and combed hair is still a towhead.