bad hair day

American

noun

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

bad hair day British

noun

a day on which one's hair is untidy and unmanageable
a day of mishaps and general irritation

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

bad hair day Idioms

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.

Etymology

Origin of bad hair day

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

bad hair day

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

From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2025

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.

From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2023

Hair is a kind of armor we wear into daily battle; a bad hair day tells the world we’re not at the top of our game.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 8, 2020

But then again, these Top 40 misfits — proud representatives of the swing state of Ohio — might simply have been having a bad hair day.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2016

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

From Salon ● Jan. 7, 2015

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023