Ask Mike: What is a towhead?
Hey Guys,
My friend’s son Zach was as bald as a cue ball for the first year of his life. Now the little maniac’s hair is coming in thick and blond. I guess that means he’s a towhead, but that raises the question: How exactly did that phrase get started? How did blond kids get that nickname?
An excellent article from the good people at Random House lays out the basics. The word “tow” in this case “is from a Germanic word meaning ‘to drag’; it’s related to tug.” Put another way, it means ‘the fiber of flax, hemp, or jute, prepared for spinning’. Those fibers, which are used to make clothes, are often “both light-colored and messy.” Hence, little kids with light-colored (and messed-up) hair are called tow-heads.
A 2003 column from Ask Yahoo! goes into a bit more detail. In colonial times, families harvested flax to make their own clothes. Once it was harvested, it went through a process “to separate the long, thin fibers from the shorter, coarser ones.” To do this, “the flax was pulled through a bed of nails or combed in a process called ‘towing.’”
The shorter fibers were called “tow.” This, in turn, “led to the term “towheads” to describe people, particularly children, whose hair resembled these strands.”
So, that’s the story of towheads. But now I have another question. Redheads can be both male and female, same as blonds. But what about folks with dark hair? Dark-haired women are called brunettes, but does that apply to men too? Or are they just “dark-haired”? Any theories? I’m all ears.
Thanks for reading,
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The kid sounds like an idiot if you ask me.
I think…technically a male w/ dark hair could be called a brunette, but it just sounds more masculine to say he is dark haired. IMO
I thought everyone was saying the wrong slur, thanks did not know that a tow head was.
WTF Cletus? And I was always under the impression that a tow head is a kid who was born with blonde hair that turned brown as they got older.
Male brunettes are ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ [ or in my husbands case; 'short, dark and handsome'! ]
I think the “ette” part of brunette makes the word sound “girly” (like a Rockette) so people just don’t use it for guys. I would generally just say “he has dark brown hair”.
I’ve heard plenty of people call dark-haired men brunette. Where in the world do you guys get your information???
It’s a toe-head. It’s when a child is blindingly blonde for a while, then becomes brown hair later in life.
Re: Tow head – Apparently Mike has not seen tow (from flax) in person or in a photo. I have seen it and handled it. The color of tow is a very light ash blond to a platinum blond color. Children with hair the color in those ranges are the true tow heads. After it is spun and prepared for weaving, it is twisted into a skein until it is used to thread the loom for the warp for weaving into linen fabric.
As for a man with dark hair, he could be called be a brunet (pronounced in English just like “brunette.”) The spelling brunette is the feminine form of the word, from the original French word for brown, “brun.”
Source: TheFreeDictionary.com
Using “Towhead” or “Toehead” to describe someone means that they have ridiculously blonde hair.
Whenever I hear it being used it’s usually towards girls (or sometimes boys) who bleach their hair till it’s PLATINUM blonde and nearly white.
That’s awesome.
I always thought it was ‘toe-head’ like lighter colored like a toenail. ew.
I’ve always referred to dark-haired men as brunettes.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brunet
The male version
Lol, brunette is the feminine of bruno which is old german for brown, so guys with brown hair are brunos.
This is the first time for me to hear of towhead
I have no idea now
Tow hair is literally “flaxen haired” .this meaning of tow comes from middle low German touw (which means, “flax hemp fibre”).this probably went back to the prehistoric Gerrmanic base tow,taw,make,prepare also English”tool”make yarn from wool,spin
Actually, etymologically speaking, brunette is only for a female. It has recently been used to refer to a man with dark hair but the appropriate word would actually be brun.
do you mean towell head or towhead.. i think towell heads i think camel jockeys…i dont know what a tow head is
A good blog ,that after some research , proves that my son , as well as Zach are in fact “Tow heads”. Not “idiots ” as your previous unlearned commenter stated. Hair colour is not gender orientated I believe. As such a brunette is a brown haired person male or female. Black haired people are left out as far as I can see…. would like to hear otherwise.
Mike, you have too much time on your hands. That’s a GOOD thing!
And here is another question. Why does the towheaded kid turn into a dark haired kid later?
Brunette is the feminine of Bruno which is old german for brown. Dark hair males are Brunos, just nobody has used that term since the 60′s.
I was married to a ‘toe-head’. It means having rediculously blonde hair (naturally), so blonde that it looks white. Almost albino like, without the pink eyes.
I have naturally blonde hair, and as a kid I was called a “Towhead” more than once,… but I always thought it was “Toe-Head”.
Well, this makes me feel better to know that my head is not shaped like a toe!
Nice point of view, but try to consider the amount of effort put into his lifestyle and future.
nice
im a towhead! its a really light blonde!
my hair is natural tho! i is towhead! light blond!
I always wondered what towhead meant, my sister and I was called that alot when we were kids.
Thanks Mike!
A person with very light (almost white) blond hair, “tow” being flax or hemp fibers. Tow-headed, along with fair(-haired) and flaxen-haired, is a tradional way in the English language to refer to blond hair or lightly-colored hair, having come from its old Germanic roots (which are quite rare).
“The tow head is an illusive creature, a minority.”
Dark hair is NOT a brunette, that is BROWN hair. Dark hair would be Brown or Black. Guys usually just have Dark Hair. As to towhead that is one of the DUMBEST terms I have heard of and this is the first time I have heard of it thankfully.
Towheads are usually referred to people with blonde hair.
I’m a towhead. It is an uncommon term. Actually, the only reason I’ve heard of it is because I’ve been called it several times before.
And just for the record, it is possible to have natural platinum blonde hair. I happen to have it. But, most people do dye it that color. In fact, it’s kinda upsetting, because in order for my hair to look like this, I’m have to be super ultra pale. I’ve even gotten asked if I was an albino once. (The answer to that would be NO!)
you… *shrugs*
i think it came to be because they would tow people around town by their hair
Ette is French. Its a suffix. Ette implies feminine, always.
here is my description; back in the cowboy days, before the Frenchies came over to this country, there was not the word blond in this country. Blond is a Frenchy word and they brought it over here when they came here. but before they got here the only description for kids with light hair was tow. this is a color. it is the color of the cowboys hemp rope. it is a color we do not use anymore but back in the days of the cowboys it was the only way to describe the color of the kids hair. Also being a Frenchy word as with latin type language there are masculine and feminine spellings for some words. Blond is for boys and blonde is for girls…
Towhead is the traditional English word. “Blonde” became popular adult females in the 1920s, especially with the movie bleached blondes. Originally an adjective. “Blond” is correct for male hair, or males.
Rowena is described as ‘flaxen-haired’ by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe.
Towhead is particularly used to describe small children, as the color darkens when they grow up. Both my children had white-gold hair when they were little, as did I.
I think it is when some child is born with really light hair and then it grows darker as they get older
That was uncalled for Cletus!!! You need to crawl back under your rock! To me it was white blonde. My grandfather had hair like that till his death at 79yrs, my sister till her teens, a 40 yr old nephew . And dark brown or brunette no different, so many natural shades!
I’m amazed at the number of people here who have not heard the term “tow headed” as I’ve seen it in reading books in reference to blond characters and figured what it meant as a child, although I am African American. I’ve always referred to and been understood when referring dark-haired persons, male or female as brunette–understanding that the root word means brown although the hair can be medium brown to black.
Upon first glance at the title, I thought he was asking, “What is a towelhead?”
towhead is kind of religion , that beleivin in only one god with no son no wife, only god ( allah) , and this basic believe in islam
Fact: a towhead is one with whiteish blond hair,
as one, I know this.
welcome <3
In colonial times, families grew their own flax to make into fabric for clothing. Transforming the flax into thread was a complicated, involved process with many time-consuming steps. After the flax was harvested, it was soaked in water for several days to soften it so the inner fibers could be removed from the stalk. To separate the long, thin fibers from the shorter, coarser ones, the flax was pulled through a bed of nails or combed in a process called “towing.” The shorter fibers that were extricated were of a lesser quality and were called “tow.” This led to the term “towheads” to describe people, particularly children, whose hair resembled these strands.
“Readheads” are now “Gingers”.
The weirdest name I ever heard was a child named after a box of orange jello. So it was pronounced
Oooooo-raaangjello.
A man with brown hair is a brunet.
I only know of the word ‘towhead’ through books and perhaps movies, and then only rarely. I doubt I ever heard someone use it irl. From the context, I always assumed it described a bratty, stubborn boy.
heard of redheads but towheads is a new term