snood

/snuːd/

snood noun: a band or ribbon for keeping the hair in place, including the hair-band formerly worn in Scotland and northern England by young unmarried women.

Image: Howard R. Hollem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

snood (plural snoods)

A band or ribbon for keeping the hair in place, including the hair-band formerly worn in Scotland and northern England by young unmarried women.
- “Frida [...] tied her hair in the Grecian snood which her lover used to admire so.”1895, R. D. Blackmore, chapter 9, in Frida, or, The Lover’s Leap, A Legend of the West Country, Dodd, Mead and Company, paragraph 1
A small hairnet or cap worn by women to keep their hair in place.
- And seldom was a snood amid / Such wild, luxuriant ringlets hid.1810, Walter Scott, “(please specify the canto number or page)”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and...
- serious girls with their hair in snoods entered numbers into logbooks […]2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 264
The flap of erectile red skin on the beak of a male turkey.
- A fingerlike projection called a snood hangs over the front of the beak. When the tom is alert, the snood constricts and projects vertically as a fleshy bump at the top rear of the beak.2000, Gary Clancy, Turkey Hunting Tactics, page 8
A short line of horsehair, gut, monofilament, etc., by which a fishhook is attached to a longer (and usually heavier) line; a snell.
- The baits are [...] dropped on the snood, as I have seen done by many unthinking persons who have only been accustomed to chopstick lines, a foul is the natural result.1875, J.C. Wilcocks, The Sea-Fisherman, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., page 62
A piece of clothing to keep the neck warm; neckwarmer.

Verb

snood (third-person singular simple present snoods, present participle snooding, simple past and past participle snooded)

To keep the hair in place with a snood.
- Janet has kilted her green kirtle
  A little aboon her knee,
  And she has snooded her yellow hair1792, Robert Burns, "Tam Lin" (a Scottish popular ballad)

snood meaning in Tamil

snood in Tamil

வான்கோழி மூக்குக்கொண்டை

Forms of snood

Noun
plural	snoods
alternative form	snod
alternative form	sneed
Verb
third-person singular present	snoods
present participle	snooding
past participle	snooded
past	snooded

Origin of snood

From Middle English snod, from Old English snōd (“headdress, fillet, snood”), from Proto-West Germanic *snōdu, from Proto-Germanic *snōdō (“rope, string”), from Proto-Indo-European *snoh₁téh₂ (“yarn, thread”), from *sneh₁(i)- (“to twist, wind, weave, plait”). Cognate with Scots snuid (“snood”), Swedish snod, snodd (“twist, twine”). Compare also Old Saxon snōva (“necklace”), Old Norse snúa (“to turn, twist”), snúðr (“a twist, twirl”), English needle.

Words that rhyme with snood

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about snood

What does snood mean?: Snood means a band or ribbon for keeping the hair in place, including the hair-band formerly worn in Scotland and northern England by young unmarried women.
What is snood in Tamil?: Snood in Tamil is வான்கோழி மூக்குக்கொண்டை. See Snood meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is snood?: Snood can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce snood?: Snood is pronounced /snuːd/.
What is the plural of snood?: The plural of snood is snoods.

Words near snood in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: snood (page history and authors); snood (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: 2026-09-02

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

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