elflock

English

Etymology

From elf +‎ lock.

Noun

elflock (plural elflocks)

1. (now rare) A lock of hair that is tangled.
   • 1828, Mary Russell Mitford, “The Fisherman in his Married State”, in Our Village‎^[1], London: G.B. Whittaker, page 278:

     Never was even washerwoman more untidy. A cap all rags, from which the hair came straggling in elf-locks over a face which generally looked red-hot […]

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 17, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The face which emerged was not reassuring. […]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls.

Translations

lock of hair that is tangled

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 糾結的頭髮／纠结的头发 (jiūjié de tóufa)

• Finnish: takku (fi)
• German: Weichselzopf (de) m
• Polish: kołtun (pl)
• Spanish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: ко́втун (uk) m (kóvtun)

References

• Random House Dictionary, 2nd Edition. Unabridged, 1987.