backcomb

present singular third person backcombs · participle present backcombing · participle past backcombed · past backcombed · alternative back-comb

1. transitiveTo hold the hair and comb it towards the head, thus giving it a bushier look.

   Her dark-blonde hair, worn long at Oxford, had been cut and backcombed, Diana-style, and quivered when she shook her head.

   2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 5, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN

   Synonyms: tease

plural backcombs · alternative back-comb

1. The hairstyle produced by backcombing.

   You and your fit friends anyway / I'd take them all out any day / They all got backcombs anyway

   2012, “Sex”, performed by The 1975

2. datedA decorative comb worn as an ornament and to secure a hairstyle.

   Her father had produced a pink crêpe de Chine blouse and a backcomb massed with brilliants—both of which she refused to wear.

   1920, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, The Lost Girl, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   There was a part of a bottle of liquor on the table—the furniture of the hall was disarranged—a pair of slippers, two small combs, and a backcomb were lying near an easy chair.

   1876, Lex, Remarkable Criminal Trials in Bengal

   A backcomb comprising a pair of oppositely disposed members of sheet material each provided with teeth along one margin, a pivot pin securing the members at one end in overlapping relation.

   1912, The Canadian Patent Office Record and Register of Copyrights and Trade Marks, volume 39, issues 1-6, page 252