snood
Americannoun
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the distinctive headband formerly worn by young unmarried women in Scotland and northern England.
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a headband for the hair.
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a netlike hat or part of a hat or fabric that holds or covers the back of a woman's hair.
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the pendulous skin over the beak of a turkey.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a pouchlike hat, often of net, loosely holding a woman's hair at the back
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a headband, esp one formerly worn by young unmarried women in Scotland
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vet science a long fleshy appendage that hangs over the upper beak of turkeys
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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snoodsimple
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snoodssimple
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have snoodedperfect
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has snoodedperfect
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am snoodingprogressive
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are snoodingprogressive
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is snoodingprogressive
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have been snoodingperfect progressive
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has been snoodingperfect progressive
Past
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snoodedsimple
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had snoodedperfect
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was snoodingprogressive
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were snoodingprogressive
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had been snoodingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of snood
before 900; Middle English: fillet, ribbon; Old English snōd
Explanation
A snood is a woman's hairnet or fitted head covering. You've probably seen paintings of nineteenth century women wearing snoods. A snood covers and pulls back the hair, much like a hairnet worn by a restaurant worker. But while a hairnet is functional, meant to keep strands of hair from ending up in customers' food, a snood is ornamental, more like a hat or scarf. It's uncommon to see women wearing snoods these days, but they show up all the time in nineteenth century art. The root of snood is the Old English snod, "hair ribbon."
Vocabulary lists containing snood
Put a Lid On It: Hats, Hoods, and Other Headgear
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Song of Solomon
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Honey and Me
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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:
"I have a lucky snood - the face masks people use when they ski - always on my person," she says.
From BBC ● Feb. 5, 2026
For turkeys, a male who can afford to sport a killer snood must have had ample resources, which ostensibly reflects the quality of his DNA.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
Normally, turkeys top out around 20 pounds, with fleshy wattles that hang down their necks and another protuberance called a snood hanging over the beak.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 22, 2022
Good thing the gift shop features those in three styles: Ninja, pleated and the ever-popular snood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2021
They looked very well in their simple suits, Meg’s in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood, lace frills, and the pearl pin.
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
Dr. Buchholz found that males with longer snoods had fewer coccidia parasites, which don’t harm adults but can sicken or kill chicks, and possess genes that may make them resistant to coccidia.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
They’re picky about partners and know what they want: males with long snoods.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
There are scarves and snoods to conceal neck-vein bulges when attempting a major bluff.
From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2018
Gloves and snoods have long been the subject of ridicule in the Premier League, but at least Neil Lennon is laying the foundations to stamp them out of the game.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2014
A Manx or Erse term for a strong fishing-line made of black hair snoods.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir
Miss Wilson actually appeared in a vivid green pillbox hat, her hair lushly snooded.
From Time Magazine Archive
She stood up and smoothly snooded back her hair; she dried her eyes, and then looked cautiously out of the window.
From A Daughter of Fife by Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston
She wore a dark brown dress and a black silk apron, and had on a cap with thick frilled borders, under which her grey hair was neatly snooded away.
From The Argosy Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 by Wood, Charles W.
Janet has kilted her green kirtle A little aboon her knee, And she has snooded her yellow hair A little aboon her bree, And she is to her father’s ha’, As fast as she can hie.
From Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series by Sidgwick, Frank
Over Christine herself had come the same bright change; her still, calm face often dimpled into smiles, her pale-gold hair was snooded with a pretty ribbon, and her dress a little richer.
From Scottish sketches by Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston
Lines of strong cord with hooks bound up the snooding with brass wire were on their winders.
From Menhardoc by Staniland, C.J.
Then anchor me there Beyond the beckoning poplars, where The larch is snooding her flowery hair With wreaths of morning shadow.
From The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 Sorrow and Consolation by Carman, Bliss
Later on I showed them a 27-stranded American cotton line 100 fathoms long, with a 4-inch hook, curved in the shank, as thick as a pencil, and "eyed" for a twisted wire snooding.
From By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories by Becke, Louis
Give Josh a shilling to make himself a new gaff, and buy a shilling’s worth of snooding and hooks for yourself.
From Menhardoc by Staniland, C.J.
With that I put it away in the trunk, and changed the subject by turning my attention to snooding a score or two of fish hooks for conger fishing.
From Jethou or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles by Suffling, Ernest R. (Ernest Richard)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
