Meanings
plural pompadours · alternative nonstandard pompador
- A women's hairstyle in which the hair is swept upwards from the face and worn high over the forehead.
- A men's hairstyle of the 1950s.
The Donald's strange pompadour and Hillary's strange server have eclipsed all the usual primary permutations.
2015 August 22, Maureen Dowd, “Donald Trump Struts in His Own Pageant”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 22 Aug 20151 more example
Squat and perspiring, with a low pompadour and a thin black mustache, he was inevitably disheveled by evening.
2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 17 - A corsage with low square neck.
present singular third person pompadours · participle present pompadouring · participle past pompadoured · past pompadoured · alternative nonstandard pompador
- To style hair into a pompadour
1976-1977, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure I parted my hair back and smoothed it instead of pompadouring it.
1 more example
But by mid-afternoon we had both grown tired of putting on and taking off the clothes my mother and Beata had made for Lillian Russell, and of taking down and pompadouring again the wig Beata had turned backside front so it should be long where ladies' hair was supposed to be long.
1944, Skulda V. Banér, Latchstring Out, page 33
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- FrenchPompadour
- Englishpompadour
From French Pompadour, after Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), mistress of Louis XV.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French banane
- bananewoman's hairstyle
Cite this entry
pompadour. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pompadour
“pompadour.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pompadour. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pompadour,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pompadour.
Source: pompadour on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.