Word.ws English Dictionary

head rag

head rag noun: a head covering comprising a piece of cloth wound around the head and knotted in the front, often associated with African American women.

Noun

head rag (plural head rags)

  1. (US) A head covering comprising a piece of cloth wound around the head and knotted in the front, often associated with African American women.
    • This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store.1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 6, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 86
    • During my wedding I wore a blue calico dress, a man's shirt tail as a head rag, and a pair of brogan shoes.1941, Sallie Carder (interviewee) in Federal Writers’ Project, Slave Narratives, Volume 13, Oklahoma Narratives, p. 27

Forms of head rag

pluralhead rags
alternative formheadrag

Origin of head rag

From head + rag.

Questions about head rag

What does head rag mean?
Head rag means a head covering comprising a piece of cloth wound around the head and knotted in the front, often associated with African American women.
What part of speech is head rag?
Head rag is a noun.
What is the plural of head rag?
The plural of head rag is head rags.

Words near head rag in the dictionary

  1. head priests
  2. head pump
  3. head pumps
  4. head race
  5. head races
  6. head rag
  7. head rags
  8. head ram
  9. head ramming
  10. head reach
  11. head restraint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: head rag (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.

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