toupee
Americannoun
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a man's wig.
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a patch of false hair for covering a bald spot.
-
(formerly) a curl or an artificial lock of hair on the top of the head, especially as a crowning feature of a periwig.
noun
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a wig or hairpiece worn, esp by men, to cover a bald or balding place
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(formerly) a prominent lock on a periwig, esp in the 18th century
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of toupee
1720–30; variant of toupet < French, equivalent to Old French to ( u ) p tuft (< Germanic; see top 1) + -et -et
Explanation
A toupee is a partial wig, made to cover a bald patch. You'll have to be careful when you're wearing your toupee on a windy day! It's easy to joke about toupees, since they often seem to quite obviously be covering up bald spots — especially if the toupee is a slightly different color from the remainder of the wearer's real hair. The noun toupee comes from the French word toupet, "tuft of hair." Originally, a toupee was a decorative tuft of fake hair that was worn for the style, rather than to cover up baldness.
Vocabulary lists containing toupee
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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 stop and pick it up, its shell covered in a toupee of inch-long algae, and deliver it to its intended destination.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
A less risky head adjustment — the remarkable return of the toupee.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 26, 2026
Boxer Fabio Wardley posted "don't worry I'll keep it safe" with a video of the toupee on the seat beside him, while Skye Nicolson, external also posed with it on her head.
From BBC ● Feb. 1, 2026
I didn’t see a horse until 1984 when I got to work the Derby as a reporter for the first time and witnessed the wind carrying Howard Cosell’s toupee aloft.
From Salon ● May 4, 2024
Even though the porpoise was large and essentially swallowed whole, the toupee stopped my heart.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Plus, big banks ace an annual stress test, and more bald men shake their heads at hair transplants and toupees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
It said teams were finding new blockages each day caused by unsuitable items, but having to root out troublesome toupees from drains was a "new one for us".
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2023
Six more toupees — all adorned with pet names — sit behind his desk on wooden heads like furry Oscars.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 26, 2022
George Bernard Shaw is said to have wryly observed that although he saw crutches and wheelchairs at shrines of healing, he saw no artificial limbs, glass eyes or toupees.
From New York Times ● Dec. 21, 2019
I am ashamed of being a young rake, when my seniors are covering their grey toupees with helmets and feathers, and accoutering their pot-bellies with cuirasses and martial masquerade habits.
From Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume I by Walpole, Horace
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.
