skinhead

noun

SKIN-hed/ˈskɪn.hɛd/

2 meanings of skinhead

1
nouncountable
A member of a youth subculture that began among working-class people in late-1960s England, marked by shaved heads and working-class dress, and often linked to violence and white-supremacist or anti-immigrant beliefs.
A skinhead in a bomber jacket shouted slogans from the back of the crowd.
The two skinheads had grown up together in the same neighborhood.
Similarskin
Note
Here the word names a membership rather than a haircut, and that is what separates it from the plain shaved-head sense. Nik Cohn, writing in The New York Times in 1970, pictured English working-class teenagers in short-ankled denims, suspenders and heavy "Bovverboots." In Christian Picciolini's White American Youth (2017), the scene is American. The short form skin stands beside the full word, and old-school members set themselves apart from overzealous "fresh-cuts."
2
nouncountable
A person whose head is completely shaved, with little or no visible hair.
He showed up to the reunion as a skinhead, having shaved his head for charity.
All the new recruits were skinheads once the barber had finished with them.
Similarbaldhead, baldy, baldie, slaphead, baldpate

Practice

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Origin

A compound of skin + head. Both parts are old English words, with skin going back through Middle English skyn to Proto-Germanic and head going back through Old English hēafod to Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European roots.