bouffant
[boo-fahnt, boo-fahnt; French boo-fahn]
- puffed out; full: a bouffant skirt.
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- a woman's hair style in which the hair is teased to give an overall puffed-out appearance and often combed to frame the face.
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Origin of bouffant
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for bouffant
Contemporary Examples
And now the same thing is happening with her signature pillowy, bouffant hairstyle, reports The Daily Mail.
This time the actress is on set in Monte Carlo wearing a giant ball gown and bouffant hairdo.
Carine Roitfeld To Launch Fragrance, L'Wren Scott Might Design Angelina Jolie's Wedding DressThe Fashion Beast Team
October 31, 2012
She ditches her plaid knee-highs for Audrey Hepburn-style shift dresses, fur stoles, red lipstick and a bouffant.
Historical Examples
She smiled to see the old men with their high-waisted pants and the old women with their bouffant hair.
MakersCory Doctorow
To the American eye it is a musical comedy costume, picturesque, bouffant, amazing.
Fanny HerselfEdna Ferber
bouffant
- (of a hair style) having extra height and width through back-combing; puffed out
- (of sleeves, skirts, etc) puffed out
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- a bouffant hair style
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Word Origin
C20: from French, from bouffer to puff up
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
Word Origin and History for bouffant
adj.
1869, from French bouffant, present participle of bouffer "to puff out," from Old French bouffer (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *buffare, probably ultimately imitative of puffing. As a noun by 1870. Earlier as a French word in English. First used of hairdo style 1955.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper