Word.ws English Dictionary

cowlick

/ˈkaʊˌlɪk/US/ˈkælɪk/

cowlick noun: an unruly lock or section of hair that sticks straight out from the skull or lies at an angle at odds with the rest of an individual's hair, like a whorl or vortex.

cowlick: an unruly lock or section of hair that sticks straight out from the skull or lies at an angle at...
Image: HorsePunchKid, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cowlick (plural cowlicks)

  1. An unruly lock or section of hair that sticks straight out from the skull or lies at an angle at odds with the rest of an individual's hair, like a whorl or vortex.
    • We would touch strangers discreetly, feathering down their cowlicks.2022, Ling Ma, “G”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    calflick

cowlick meaning in Tamil, Tagalog, Persian and Thai

cowlick in Tamil

இரட்டைச்சுழி தலை

cowlick in Tagalog

unruly lock of hair
puyo

cowlick in Persian

unruly lock of hair
موی ناخواب mu-ye nâxâb

cowlick in Thai

unruly lock of hair
ขวัญ kwǎn
More languagesFewer languages
cowlick in Vietnamese
khoáy

Synonyms of cowlick

Forms of cowlick

pluralcowlicks
alternative formcow-lick
alternative formcow lick

Origin of cowlick

From cow + lick; as the hair may appear to have been licked into place by a cow.

Words formed from cowlick

Questions about cowlick

What does cowlick mean?
Cowlick means an unruly lock or section of hair that sticks straight out from the skull or lies at an angle at odds with the rest of an individual's hair, like a whorl or vortex.
What is cowlick in Tamil?
Cowlick in Tamil is இரட்டைச்சுழி தலை. See Cowlick meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cowlick?
Cowlick is a noun.
How do you pronounce cowlick?
Cowlick is pronounced /ˈkaʊˌlɪk/.
What is the plural of cowlick?
The plural of cowlick is cowlicks.

Words near cowlick in the dictionary

  1. Cowley County
  2. Cowley Father
  3. Cowley Fathers
  4. Cowleyan
  5. Cowleys
  6. cowlick
  7. cowlicked
  8. cowlicks
  9. cowlift
  10. cowlifts
  11. cowlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cowlick (page history and authors); cowlick (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cowlick.wav.

Cite this entry: “cowlick.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cowlick. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.