blond
Americanadjective
-
blonder,
comparative
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blondest
superlative
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(of hair, skin, etc.) light-colored.
the child's soft blond curls.
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(of a person) having light-colored hair and skin.
-
(of furniture wood) light in tone.
noun
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blonds
plural
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a blond person.
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silk lace, originally unbleached but now often dyed any of various colors, especially white or black.
adjective
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(of men's hair) of a light colour; fair
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(of a person, people or a race) having fair hair, a light complexion, and, typically, blue or grey eyes
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(of soft furnishings, wood, etc) light in colour
noun
Spelling
See blonde.
Usage
What’s the difference between blond and blonde? Blond and blonde are both adjectives most commonly used to describe the color of light or yellowish hair or someone who has such hair. They can also both be used as nouns referring to a person with such hair, as in Should I make this character a blond or a redhead? They are pronounced exactly the same. But there is a difference: the spelling blonde is typically used in a gender-specific way to refer to or describe women and girls with this hair color. In contrast, the use of blond in a gender-neutral way is very common. And when the word is used as an adjective, this spelling is much more commonly used, regardless of the gender of the person whose hair color is being described. Blond and blonde derive from French, which has grammatical gender, meaning that some words end differently depending on whether they are applied to men or women (with e being the feminine ending). This happens in a few other pairs of words in English, like confidant and confidante, though in many cases the term without the e has become largely gender-neutral. This is the case with blond, which is the more commonly used of the two. When describing the colors of things other than hair, such as wood or coffee, only the spelling blond is used. When in doubt, remember that the spelling blond is appropriate in all cases. Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between blond and blonde.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of blond
First recorded in 1475–85; from Middle French blonde “blond, light brown,” feminine of blond, from Germanic; akin to Old English blondenfeax “gray-haired,” Latin flāvus “yellow” ( see flavo-)
Explanation
Blond isn't just a word used to describe pale yellow hair, it can also be used to describe a person with such hair. We'll leave it to you to decide whether or not blonds have more fun. There's all kinds of blonds out there from bleached to platinum to strawberry to sandy. Some people, Brits especially, will add an e to the end of blonde depending on what gender they are talking about, so that a woman is blonde while a man is blond. The addition of the "e" in the feminine form of blonde is of course a holdover from its French origin. Not only fair-haired people are described as blond; you might have seen blond wood used in Scandinavian furniture. Ikea, anyone?
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:
About a month ago, an artist going by @redteneri posted a drawing on X/Twitter of Harry Potter character Draco Malfoy as a girl with long blond hair, hoop earrings, and green irises.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2026
In a sport full of elaborate buzz cuts and eye-searing bleach jobs, Erling’s striking blond mane, pulled into a tight bun, became one of the enduring images of the tournament.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026
She had a high blond ponytail that nodded to Madonna’s look from the Blonde Ambition tour — a random happy coincidence, Bob would later share with me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
Behind her trad-wife trappings, Barbara yearns to breathe free; Ibby, a blond beauty born to be disappointed, needs a friend and Barbara is it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
Above the fireplace is a family portrait: Joseph, his younger brother, and a pretty blond woman who must be his mother.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
In past showcases, performers have revealed their secrets to selling jingles to small businesses, illustrated exactly what’s different about blonds and debated whether dinosaurs were smarter than a fifth grader.
From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2020
Each hour, the ocean gets bluer, the sun softer, the blonds bleachier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2019
That said, the reboot is far more diverse than the original, where Joan Collins, Linda Evans, John Forsythe and countless blonds with big hair and bigger shoulder pads tried to outmaneuver one another.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2017
In the 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire, Bacall was the third-billed brunet between two sexy blonds, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable.
From Time ● Aug. 15, 2014
Two more heads peered around the door frame, but they were brunets rather than blonds.
From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
She'd squeeze lemon on her hair to make it blonder, and put on concerts of Whitney Houston covers for her neighbours.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
But audiences grew attached to the new heartthrob for his captivating performance as the younger, blonder version of Donald Sutherland’s bone-chilling authoritative dictator President Coriolanus Snow from the original “The Hunger Games” series.
From Salon ● Dec. 31, 2023
“The grayer my hair got over the years, the blonder my hair got,” she says.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 8, 2020
This is most obvious in the scene where Captain America fights his earlier self, and the even blonder Steve Rogers of 2014 instantly becomes the one you want to see prone on the ground.
From Slate ● Apr. 26, 2019
Bess is softer than her sisters, and blonder, but still the same mold.
From "We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart
"When we talked, the first thing Amber said to me is: 'I am really blonde, I'm the blondest person you've ever seen, I'm impossible to miss'," said Cat, who was diagnosed with cancer aged 20.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2021
A goth in black biker boots and the "blondest person you've ever seen" who loves the colour pink may seem like an unlikely pairing on paper.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2021
Winning was the priority, whether running fastest, jumping highest or having the blondest hair, leading the young Al to set his sights on becoming "world king".
From The Guardian ● Jul. 21, 2019
To The Post, she characterized Johnson as ubercompetitive — suggesting that, going back to his childhood, he “competed at everything, including who was the blondest, who was the fastest, who was the cleverest.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 20, 2019
The Rainbow Race, Latinos from the blackest of black to the bluest eyes and blondest hair, all splashing their multihued complexion at the edge of Central Park.
From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez
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