peruke

plural perukes · alternative perruque · alternative peruque

1. A wig, especially one with long hair on the sides and back, worn mainly by men in the 17th and 18th centuries.

   With a delicate touch, he reset his golden peruke on his sweat-slick skull.

   1992, Kim Newman, Anno Dracula, Titan Books, published 2011, page 135

   4 more examples

   To poſterity perhaps his prints vvill carry an idea of ſomething burleſque; perukes of outrageous length flovving over ſuits of armour compoſe vvonderfull habits.

   1762–1771, Horace Walpole, “Mr. JOHN SMITH”, in A Catalogue of Engravers, Who Have Been Born, or Resided in England; […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV, or Engravers), London: […] Thomas Farmer […], →OCLC, page 105

   But now at thirty years my hair is gray— / (I wonder what it will be like at forty? / I thought of a peruke the other day) […]

   1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, stanza CCXIII, page 109

   Let the long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; […]

   1834, Robert Southey, “Ante-preface”, in The Doctor, &c., volume I, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, →OCLC, pages 35–36

   Every chair was filled, the line of assistants working like conjurors at the bizarre hairstyles, a splendid confusion of feathers and flared perukes, wings of back-brushed hair, like the plumage of an aviary.

   1979, J.G. Ballard, chapter 19, in The Unlimited Dream Company