bedhead

See also: bed head

English

Alternative forms

• bed head

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɛd.hɛd/
• Rhymes: -ɛdhɛd

Etymology 1

From bed +‎ head. Superficially similar to, but etymologically distinguishable from, forms built from -head.

Noun

bedhead (countable and uncountable, plural bedheads)

1. (colloquial) The condition of having unkempt hair, generally as a result of having just woken up from sleep.

   Synonym: bed hair

   Hyponym: sex hair

   • 2002, Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity, Vintage Canada, published 2011:

     Hand was looking flustered with me, though he was still only half-awake and his bedhead was ridiculous […]

   • 2020, Emily Segal, Mercury Retrograde, New York: Deluge Books, →ISBN:

     She always came to the office late because she was an INSOMNIAC, lewd grin, bedhead, and miniskirt, the CEO laughing his head off down the hallway, old word style, but new to have this dirty kind of hilarious brunette.

Derived terms

• bed-headed

 

Translations

unkempt hair

• French: ^{(please verify)} tête de lit (fr) f, ^{(please verify)} têtes de lit (fr) f pl
• Spanish: pelo despeinado m, pelo desordenado m, pelo descuidado m

Etymology 2

From Middle English bed-head, bedhede (also as beddeshed, beddes hede, beddes heed), equivalent to bed +‎ head.

Noun

bedhead (plural bedheads)

1. (British) A vertical panel or board at the end of a bed where the pillow is placed.

   Synonym: headboard

   Holonyms: bedstead; bedframe (sometimes comeronymous)

   • 1772, anonymous author, A True and Genuine Account of the Life, Trial, and Execution of James Bolland‎^[1], London: self-published, page 2:

     […] upon this he went up stairs in his shirt, and found the boy hanging in his belt to the staple within the bed-head, and no higher than would admit him to be on his knees, having only his shirt on.

   • 1949, George Orwell, chapter 4, in Nineteen Eighty-Four‎^[2]:

     Feeling slightly ashamed of himself, he sat up against the bedhead.

   • 1977, Edna O'Brien, Johnny I Hardly Knew You, Penguin, published 1984, page 82:

     There was a big black wrought-iron double bed, with a mosaic in the centre of the bedhead.

   • 2014, Christine Kenneally, chapter 8, in The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures, New York: Viking:

     A few miles from Skara Brae, you can see hearths, bedheads, and milk crate-style shelving in a cluster of stone houses that are joined by an internal corridor, like those of an apartment block. The houses are five thousand years old, older than the Egyptian pyramids.

2. The end of a bed where the pillow is placed, the head of the bed.

   Synonyms: head (of the bed), bed's head

   • 1841, Samuel Warren, Ten Thousand a-Year‎^[3], Boston: Little & Brown, published 1900, Vol. III, Chapter, VIII, p. 342:

     Miss Macspleuchan, with a faint shriek, rang the bell at the bed-head violently; but before she or any one else could reach her, Lady Cecilia had fallen heavily on the floor, where she lay unconsciously, her maid falling down over her as she rushed into the room, alarmed by the sudden and violent ringing of the bell.

   • 1940, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XXXIII, in Bethel Merriday, London: Jonathan Cape, page 364:

     She turned off the bed-head light in this tiny, low-ceiled rolling home of hers, raised the curtain and watched the specks of light streak by.