Snood
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A band or ribbon for keeping the hair in place, including the hair-band formerly worn in Scotland and northern England by young unmarried women.
"“Frida [...] tied her hair in the Grecian snood which her lover used to admire so.”"
- 2 an ornamental net in the shape of a bag that confines a woman's hair; pins or ties at the back of the head wordnet
- 3 A small hairnet or cap worn by women to keep their hair in place.
"And seldom was a snood amid / Such wild, luxuriant ringlets hid."
- 4 The flap of erectile red skin on the beak of a male turkey.
"A fingerlike projection called a snood hangs over the front of the beak. When the tom is alert, the snood constricts and projects vertically as a fleshy bump at the top rear of the beak."
- 5 A short line of horsehair, gut, monofilament, etc., by which a fishhook is attached to a longer (and usually heavier) line; a snell.
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- 6 A piece of clothing to keep the neck warm; neckwarmer.
- 1 To keep the hair in place with a snood.
"Janet has kilted her green kirtle A little aboon her knee, And she has snooded her yellow hair"
Example
More examples"To a superstitious eye, Lucy Ashton, folded in her plaided mantle, with her long hair, escaping partly from the snood and falling upon her silver neck, might have suggested the idea of the murdered Nymph of the fountain."
Etymology
From Middle English snod, from Old English snōd (“headdress, fillet, snood”), from Proto-West Germanic *snōdu, from Proto-Germanic *snōdō (“rope, string”), from Proto-Indo-European *snoh₁téh₂ (“yarn, thread”), from *sneh₁(i)- (“to twist, wind, weave, plait”). Cognate with Scots snuid (“snood”), Swedish snod, snodd (“twist, twine”). Compare also Old Saxon snōva (“necklace”), Old Norse snúa (“to turn, twist”), snúðr (“a twist, twirl”), English needle.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.