bad hair day

noun

1. a disagreeable or unpleasant day, especially one during which one feels unattractive.

bad hair day

noun

1. a day on which one's hair is untidy and unmanageable

2. a day of mishaps and general irritation

Word History and Origins

Origin of bad hair day¹

First recorded in 1990–95

Idioms and Phrases

A day when one's appearance, especially one's hair, does not look attractive. For example, What have I done to upset Martha? Nothing, she's just having a bad hair day. Originating as a humorous statement, this term was soon broadened to mean simply having a bad day, that is, a day when everything seems to go wrong. [Late 1980s] Also see not one's day.

Example Sentences

We miss the note, we have the bad hair day.

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Paul wanted his audience to think of “anxiety” as the mild sense of dread you might experience when contemplating going to work on a bad hair day.

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And don't be defeated by a bad hair day!

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He would worry that they weren’t having a good time, just as he would worry that if he was “having a bad hair day” it meant that he “had a brain tumor.”

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The next morning, Ms. Bastardo selected a song to use as a soundtrack for the six-second clip, a catchy tune about a bad hair day that had started gaining traction on TikTok.

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