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beehive

beehive

4 5.8
A woman's hairstyle with hair piled high in a cone shape
  • noun
  • /ˈbiːhaɪv/
translation icon : peinado en forma de colmena
  • The actress stepped onto the red carpet with a towering beehive hairstyle that was reminiscent of the 1960s.
  • beehive hairdo
  • beehive hair
  • beehive wig

But but that cousin is the guy that told me and Terry Winner about a guy from Newark who shot his wife in the beehive hairdo.

Examples

  • Fred stands near the weight station booth, where a plump girl in a beehive hairdo sits inside a trailer.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • Oh, when I was a little girl my mother had one of those silly beehive hairdos, you know, the really tall one?

  • Well, thank you, lady with the beehive hair.

  • I had this huge beehive on my head.

  • After breakfast I went to get ready and put on a full face of makeup and also tried to perfect the beehive hairstyle.

  • Haven't seen many girls with beehives these days.

  • My mother wore a beehive hairdo and talked about existentialism.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • Her teased beehive in the high school yearbook made her look thirty.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • The other one sported a beehive hairdo right out of the fifties.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • She came out in a beehive with some sunglasses and lashes on the sunglasses, which I thought was Absolutely Fabulous.

Compounds

6.3

A nickname for the state of Utah in the United States

How Voluminous

beehive
4 5.8
bouffant
3 7.4
blowout
  • US
5 3.7
bob
4 3.8

Surface Forms

beehive singular
beehives plural

Morphology

beehive = bee + hive (semi-transparent) = bee + hive

The compound is structurally clear but the hairstyle sense is a figurative resemblance rather than literal, so learners may need the cultural reference.

Etymology

Beehive for the hair style was named because the hair is piled high and rounded, looking like a real beehive. So a beehive hairstyle is simply hair shaped into a tall, cone-like 'home' for the style.