dreadlock

Pluraldreadlocks

Formsdreadlocks, dreadlocking, dreadlocked

1. 1
   nouncountable

   One of the separate strands that together make up a head of dreadlocks.

   The stylist worked wax into each dreadlock, one at a time.

   Years later, he still kept the dreadlock he had cut off in a small wooden box.

   Similarlock, dread

   Note

   The singular was carved out of the plural: dreadlocks, the hairstyle, came first, and dreadlock was formed from it to name one strand. Since the style is a whole head of them, the singular earns its place when one lock is singled out, waxed, cut off or kept in a box.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To form a person's hair into dreadlocks.

   Some salons will dreadlock your hair in a single afternoon.

   His hair had been dreadlocked by years of salt water and sun.

   Note

   The past participle can describe hair that has locked by itself rather than been styled: a narrator in David Benioff's When the Nines Roll Over paces the avenues with his "mane dreadlocked by city dirt." The shorter verb dread does the same job, as in having your hair dreaded at a salon.

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