towheads

Noun

towhead (plural towheads)

1. A blond person whose very pale, almost white hair resembles tow; the hair of such a person.
   • You've got a swell chance to make this [baseball] team, you have, not! Third base is my job, Freshie. Why, you tow-head, you couldn't play marbles.1911 March, Zane Grey, “Out on the Field”, in The Young Pitcher, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC, page 64
2. An alluvial deposit in a river, such as a sandbar, or a small island formed from silt, often permanent enough to have vegetation.
   • Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything but little saplings to tie to.1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC