backcomb

• back-comb

From back +‎ comb.

backcomb (third-person singular simple present backcombs, present participle backcombing, simple past and past participle backcombed)

1. To hold hair and comb it towards the head, thus giving it a bushier look.

   Synonym: tease

   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 5, in The Line of Beauty , 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     Her dark-blonde hair, worn long at Oxford, had been cut and backcombed, Diana-style, and quivered when she shook her head.

backcomb (plural backcombs)

1. The hairstyle produced by backcombing.
   • 2012, “Sex”, performed by The 1975:

     You and your fit friends anyway / I'd take them all out any day / They all got backcombs anyway

3. (dated) A decorative comb worn as an ornament and to secure a hairstyle.
   • 1876, Lex, Remarkable Criminal Trials in Bengal:

     There was a part of a bottle of liquor on the table—the furniture of the hall was disarranged—a pair of slippers, two small combs, and a backcomb were lying near an easy chair.

   • 1912, The Canadian Patent Office Record and Register of Copyrights and Trade Marks, volume 39, issues 1-6, page 252:

     A backcomb comprising a pair of oppositely disposed members of sheet material each provided with teeth along one margin, a pivot pin securing the members at one end in overlapping relation.

   • 1920, D H Lawrence, The Lost Girl, London: Martin Secker , →OCLC:

     Her father had produced a pink crêpe de Chine blouse and a backcomb massed with brilliants—both of which she refused to wear.