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Definition 2024


fright_wig

fright wig

See also: fright-wig

English

A fright wig

Alternative forms

Noun

fright wig (plural fright wigs)

  1. A wig, usually worn for humorous or novelty effect, having voluminous, frizzy, long hair, suggesting the hair "standing on end" of a person who is extremely frightened or who has experienced a powerful electric shock.
    • c. 1920, Rex Ellingwood Beach, "A Bitter Root Billingsrbiter":
      There's an awfulness about the voice of a blood-maddened club-swingin' mob; it lifts your scalp like a fright wig, particularly if you are the clubee.
    • 1989 Nov. 3, Janet Maslin, "Film Review: Second Sight (1989)," New York Times (retrieved 6 June 2014):
      Mr. Pinchot, wearing a long-haired fright wig, plays a guileless nut named Bobby McGee who has been struck by lightning and turned into a psychic.
    • 2006 Jan. 19, Arifa Akbar, "Warhol's final self-portraits reveal his darker side," The Independent (UK) (retrieved 6 June 2014):
      Six months before Andy Warhol died of a heart attack, he finished painting his last series of self-portraits. . . . In the images, set on an inky black background, his bald head is covered by his famously disconcerting "fright wig".

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