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Coiffure

noun
1.
The arrangement of the hair (especially a woman's hair).  Synonyms: coif, hair style, hairdo, hairstyle.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Coiffure" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the things that really mattered (such was the dim thought at the back of Henry's mind), she was to Geraldine what Geraldine was to Aunt Annie. Her gown was a miracle, her hat was another, and her coiffure a third. And when she removed a glove—her rings, and her finger-nails! And the glimpses of her shoes! She was so finished. And in the way of being frankly feminine, Geraldine might go to school to her. Geraldine ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... ready, in her bedroom. In the large mirror of the dark wardrobe she surveyed her victoriously young face, the magnificent grey dress, the coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy. No thought of the past nor of the future, nor of what was going on in other parts of the earth's surface could in the slightest degree impair her happiness. She had done nothing herself, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... the autumnal breeze found its way through the ancient lattice-window, which pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet too, with its mirror, turbaned, after the manner of the beginning of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-coloured silk, and its hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements which had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... of the year, there are a number of games and sports peculiar to this time. The girls, dressed in their best robes and girdles, with their faces powdered and their lips painted, until they resemble the peculiar colors seen on a beetle's wings, and their hair arranged in the most attractive coiffure, are out upon the street playing battledore and shuttlecock. They play not only in twos and threes, but also in circles. The shuttlecock is a small seed, often gilded, stuck round with feathers arranged like the petals of ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton

... young men and maidens came in springtime for the fete of flowers, when they wove chaplets and garlands, for the moyen-age had preserved the antique custom of the coiffure of flowers, that is to say hats of natural flowers, as we might call them to-day, except that modern hats seemingly call for most of the products of the barnyard and the farm in their decoration, as well as ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... ornamentation of the coffins varied, but consisted generally of small figures of men, about six or seven inches in length, the most usual figure being a warrior with his arms akimbo and his legs astride, wearing on his head a coiffure, like that which is seen on the Parthian coins, and having a sword hanging from the belt. [PLATE ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... room adjoining Mrs. Binswanger leaned a crumpled coiffure through the frame of the open door: "Simon, I got here that red woolen undershirt. I want you should put it on before ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... houses, huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes on a piece of paper; while at other times, when he had sunk into a reverie, the pen would, all unknowingly, sketch a small head which had delicate features, a pair of quick, penetrating eyes, and a raised coiffure. Then suddenly the dreamer would perceive, to his surprise, that the pen had executed the portrait of a maiden whose picture no artist could adequately have painted; and therewith his despondency would become greater than ever, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... two men swept the double column of girls until they rested on the one head that, despite its high coiffure, failed to achieve the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... Heaps and heaps of blue-black coils and braids, a royal crown of swarthy bands, a veritable sable tiara, heavy, abundant, odorous. All the vitality that should have given color to her face seemed to have been absorbed by this marvellous hair. It was the coiffure of a queen that shadowed the pale temples of this little bourgeoise. So heavy was it that it tipped her head backward, and the position thrust her chin out a little. It was a charming ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... excited. She settled her chain and puffed the elaborate coiffure of her hair, the while she continued to survey the class. She looked hesitant and undecided, glancing from row to row; then, as from some inspiration, her face cleared and she grew arch, shaking a finger playfully. ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... silly he must feel coming so early!" Presently as Lorne grew absorbed in talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further reflected, "I don't think I've ever seen him till now in evening dress; it does make him a good figure." This went on behind a faultless coiffure and an expression almost classical in its detachment; but if Miss Milburn could have thought on a level with her looks I, for one, would hesitate to take any liberty ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... eyes followed the strange and marvelous outline described by the lines of that arm, running into the sharp rise of a shoulder, like an apple against the throat, the bizarre shape of the head in its whimsical coiffure, the slope of the other shoulder carrying the caressing glance down that arm to the hand clasping a sheaf of outspread plumes against her knee, and on along to where one quaint impossible slipper with a fantastic high heel emerged from a stream of fabric that ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... to the Apollo theatre, they gave the Vestal and a ballet. I wore white with a Greek coiffure. There were a great many people, and an especially large number of men. Not a single woman between our box and ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff

... carelessly defiant smile. The illusion was aided by a crown of hair such as no woman of Lady Ogram's age ever did, or possibly could, possess in her own right; hair of magnificent abundance, of rich auburn hue, plaited and rolled into an elaborate coiffure. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... imitation of a woman's form, and ranks amongst the finest of its kind yet found in Roman excavations. The hands and feet are carved with the utmost skill. The arrangement of the hair is characteristic of the age of the Antonines, and differs but little from the coiffure of Faustina the elder. The doll was probably dressed, because in the thumb of her right hand are inserted two gold keyrings like those carried by housewives. This charming little figure, the joints of which ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... black, and silver, and glittering with brass saucer-shaped ornaments; and a waistbelt adorned with metal buttons. The effect is neat, bright, and decidedly piquant. The girls plait their fair hair in two long tails, wearing a handkerchief as a head-dress; but the married women have a most elaborate coiffure, something of the sister-of-mercy type, consisting of the so-called skaut, or hood, and the lin, or forehead band. It takes a considerable time to put on, as the snow-white linen has to be most ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman

... went through life standing. She was a short, broad, high-colored woman, with a loud voice, and superabundant black hair, arranged in a way peculiar to herself,—with so many combs and bands that it had the appearance of a national coiffure. There was an impression in New York, about 1845, that the style was Danish; some one had said something about having seen it ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James

... of conversation we didn't hit it off in the least. He discussed broadly and philosophically the evils of institutional care for dependent children, while I lightly deplored the unbecoming coiffure ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... time past had prevented her from seriously contemplating and arranging a very different kind of match. Since their father's death she had schooled them into calling her "Edith"; she had also succeeded by means of certain modifications in her appearance, not confined entirely to her raiment and her coiffure, in creating the illusion of thirty; and everything she said and did was calculated to confirm this process of self-deception. She loathed old age. The very breath of an old person in the room in which she sat was enough to oppress and ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... appeared to be smiling out of the corners of her eyes, while her back was half turned to Ferragut, acknowledging his mute and scrutinizing admiration. She had her hair loosely arranged like a woman who is not afraid of naturalness in her coiffure, and lets her waving locks peep out under her hat ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... order,—for a species of green and yellow turban surmounted her head in a manner which he felt to be ridiculous; but thanks to the admirable manner in which the rest of his programme had been carried out, the luckless coiffure was forgiven. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... only article of attire, all are practically identical with the type of such a fresco as that of the Cupbearer at Knossos. The conscientious Egyptian artists have carefully represented also the elaborate coiffure which was characteristic of the Minoans, who allowed their hair to fall in long tails down their shoulders, doing part of it up in a knot or curl on the top of the head. The tribute-bearers carry in their hands or upon their shoulders great vessels of gold and ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... speechless admiration of the picture she made as she stood there, symmetrical figure gracefully erect, her head held high with its elaborate coiffure of brown hair, her dark blue eyes flashing resentment. The creamy column of her well shaped neck, the firm chin, the almost classic perfection of her features, the rich red of her cheeks—wherever did Ferguson go for his secretaries? She was plainly dressed ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... pantomime, pointed to herself and the picture, touched her eyes and nose and mouth and then the corresponding painted features. She felt of her own jet hair, shook her head and looked questioningly at the light coiffure of Pauline. She turned to the old man, evidently asking if the painting were true in this respect. Then she smiled a smile like Pauline's. Perhaps she was asking if Pauline had changed the color of ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... soon eased him of his embroidery and purple, by playful allusions to flower and colour. 'Spring is early.'—'How did that peacock get here?'—'His mother must have lent him that shawl,'—and so on. The same with the rest, his rings, his elaborate coiffure, and his table excesses. Little by little he came to his senses, and left Athens very much the better for the ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... The immense coiffure of shining black hair of the Chinese girl did not lend itself to any Western hat. Hat and hair together made her head appear out of proportion to ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... come any mail?" Aunt Mary inquired, when her coiffure was made and her dressing-gown adjusted. "I feel jus' like I might hear from Jack. Seems as if I sort of can't think of ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... and his coterie into the music room, her attractive, bony features revealing a quizzical expression. In the glitter of the big chandelier her coiffure appeared extraordinarily blonde, her green eyes, especially frosty; and the eighteenth century ladies in the gilded frames seemed suddenly, despite their histories, insipid in comparison with this modern face, emancipated from a thousand ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... is conspicuous in the account of the coiffure of the period and of the superstitious reverence which a Frenchman of that day paid to his hair. In tracing the origin of this superstition he exhibits casually his historical learning. The crine profuso and barba demissa of the reges crinitos, as the Merovingians were called, are often ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... returns not home; though, in truth, he tells those poor old people very little of himself. The apprentices of the M. Metayer for whom he works, labour all day long, each at a single part only,—coiffure, or robe, or hand,—of the cheap pictures of religion or fantasy he exposes for sale at a low price along the footways of the Pont Notre-Dame. Antony is already the most skilful of them, and seems ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... flitting patches of deep red in a pale face, which must have been fresh and softly colored once. Premature wrinkles had withered the delicately modeled forehead beneath the coronet of soft, well-set chestnut hair, invariably wound about her head in two plaits, a girlish coiffure which suited the melancholy face. There was a deceptive look of calm in the dark eyes, with the hollow, shadowy circles about them; sometimes, when she was off her guard, their expression told of secret anguish. The oval of her face was somewhat long; but happiness and health had perhaps ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac

... had had my hair dressed, ornamented with quantities of little curls, diamonds, and jewelled pins, she had the impertinence to appear at Court wearing a huge wig, a grotesque travesty of my coiffure. I was told of it. I entered the King's apartment without deigning to salute Madame, or even to look ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... coiffure, and all the preparations for the ball had cost Kitty great trouble and consideration, at this moment she walked into the ballroom in her elaborate tulle dress over a pink slip as easily and simply as though all the rosettes and lace, all the minute details ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... there this way. There's a dear good girl." Agnes had gone, though it was decidedly no part of her duty as one of the highest paid employes of the Novella. But they all envied the popular actress, and were ready to do anything for her. The next thing she remembered was finishing the coiffure she was working on and going to Miss Blaisdell. There lay the beautiful actress. The light in the corridor had not been lighted yet, and it was dark. Her lips and mouth seemed literally to shine. Agnes ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... rebukingly, from the posters that line the Avenue; the face of "The Greatest Mother in the World," or that younger face beyond which the eye perceives dim outlines of marching men in khaki. The veil with the Red Cross is transformed into a coiffure of powdered hair, crowning the countenance and figure of a grande dame of the eighteenth century. She is standing before the doorway of a great country house, smiling and beckoning welcome, and at the ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... long leather gaiters ornamented with colours, and untanned shoes. Despite the heat many wore the Guanche cloak, a blanket (English) with a running string round the neck. The women covered their graceful heads with a half-square of white stuff, and deformed the coiffure by a hideous black billycock, an unpleasant memory of Wales. Some hundreds of men, women, and children were working on the road, and we were surprised by the beauty of the race, its classical outlines, oval contours, straight profiles, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... qualms about the success of his part, had determined to make it comic, and appeared in the strange costume of a Mexican general, with a hat trimmed with white feathers, surmounted by a bird of paradise. Worse still, when he took off this hat he showed a wig in the form of a pyramid, a coiffure which was the special prerogative of Louis Philippe! The play was doomed. The Duke of Orleans, who was in one of the boxes, left the theatre hurriedly; and it was difficult to finish the performance, so loud were the shouts, hisses, and even threats. The next day the following official announcement ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... condition of affairs, relative to which Dr. Grey had never uttered a syllable. Bent upon mischief, she had, malice prepense, dressed herself with unusual care, and arranged her hair in a new style of coiffure, which ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... thing, the lady's hair is arranged over a high cushion in the peculiar style affected at this period in fashionable circles. The style was carried to absurd extremes, ladies vying with one another in the height of the coiffure until in some cases it actually towered a foot and a half in height. Over this structure were worn nodding plumes of feathers, ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... their instruments when the party from the house entered the rosy-lighted mess-hall. Jo started forward with an air of assurance to claim Pen. When he beheld her, he stopped abruptly, lost in admiration of the daintily clad young person whose Castle-cut locks had been lured to a coiffure from which little ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... one of her admirers described them, was surrounded as soon as she entered a crowded room, even when powdered and elegantly attired ladies of fashion were deserted. And Mary, though she had not glasses out of which to drink her wine, and though her coiffure was unfashionable, became a person of consequence in ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... find yourself?" said Madame. "Confess now that I have a true talent in coiffure. Now I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... touchin' meetin', I expect," remarked Mrs. Lem, lifting her pompadour and sighing sentimentally. Judge Trent had surprised her in a state of sleek and simple coiffure; but no sooner had his high hat disappeared down the hill than she flew into the bedroom and remedied the modest workaday appearance of her head; nor would the pompadour abate one half inch of its majestic proportions ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... worn, a caul of net-work, called a crespine, often replaced it, and for many years it continued to be a favorite coiffure. ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... dandies in their queer attire—the strange toilettes of the ladies. One seemed to have a bird's nest in her head; another had six pounds of grapes in her hair, besides her false pearls. "It's a coiffure of almonds and raisins," said Pen "and might be served up for dessert." In a word, he was exceedingly satirical ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... suspicious, while suddenly she would nervously and rather cruelly relax her watchfulness. She was not so tall as she appeared, nor so slender; she had beautiful shoulders, lovely arms, and fine, long hands. She was very neat in her dress, and her coiffure, always trim and tasteful, with none of the Bohemian carelessness or the exaggerated smartness of many artists—even in that she was catlike, instinctively aristocratic, although she had risen from the gutter. At bottom she was incurably shy ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... grisette, with a sidelong glance at one of the mirrors. "Beautiful, with such a coiffure and such a bodice! Ciel! ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... were restricted to an oriental extent within convention, when to be "prim" was the aim of life, no feature of dress was lacking that could put "abandonment" of any but a moral kind, out of the question. A shake of the head too quickly and the coiffure was imperilled; the movements that came within the prescribed circle of dignity within the circle of the crinoline were all of a rhythmical order. Women did not take to moving with freedom because the crinoline went out, but the crinoline ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... she saw this coiffure, and frankly examined it, head well back, tongue meditatively teasing at her ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... test the size by trying it on over the headsize wire on the brim for which the crown is made. An ordinary height for a round crown would be seven inches from tip to base wire, but to be safe, it is always better to measure the head. Sometimes, on account of an abundance of hair or a high coiffure, a greater height is needed. If the base wire is elongated to fit the head, the side measurement from the tip to the base of the crown will be found shorter than from the tip to the front and the back. It will be most helpful to take an old crown which has an elongated headsize ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin

... the eyes of a young Chinese woman, but he sensed immediately that she was not of the river type. Her fine black hair was arranged in a gorgeous coiffure. Gold ornaments drooped from her ears, and her complexion was liberally sanded with rice powder. Her painted lips wore an expression ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... step, and even touched the shoulders with a suggestion of restless virility. When she walked there was an imperious tilt to her head; but no matter how carefully planned her toilette, or how cleverly her coiffure might have been arranged by her maid, there was nearly always some stray bit of colour or carelessly chosen flower that combined with her nature in a suggestion of outlawry: the same instinct of ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... poetry, and which others feel rather as a recoil into humour. The best and last touch to this topsy-turvydom was given when a lady, observing one of these reverend gentlemen who for some reason did not carry this curious coiffure, exclaimed, in a tone of heartrending surprise and distress, "Oh, he's bobbed ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... Mrs. Hepton, the landlady, plump, gray-haired, and graciously hospitable. She did not look at all like a business woman, but appearances are not always to be trusted; Mrs. Hepton had learned not to trust them—also delinquent boarders, too far. He met Miss Sherborne, whose coiffure did not match in spots, but whose voice, so he learned afterward, had been "cultivated abroad." Miss Sherborne gave music lessons. Mrs. Van Winkle Ruggles also claimed his attention and held it, principally because of the faded richness of her apparel. Mrs. Ruggles was a widow, suffering ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... n'etalent pas tous leurs charmes a decouvert, c'est que les hommes les moins scrupuleux, qui se contentent de les persifler, en seraient revoltes tout-a-fait. D'ailleurs, c'est que ce n'est pas encore la mode; plusieurs poussent meme l'impudence jusqu'a venir dans nos temples sans coiffure, les cheveux herisses comme des furies; d'autres, par une bizarrerie qu'on ne peut expliquer se depouillent, autant qu'il est en leur pouvoir, des marques de leur propre sexe, sembleut rougir d'etre femmes, et deviennent ridicules ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... that evokes not admiration but execration from the people seated behind her. No woman need risk annoying others in order to be attractive herself; there are numerous styles that are both unobtrusive and becoming. Moreover, the woman in good society has ample opportunity to exhibit her elaborate coiffure at ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... material were found in a niche in the wall of a house in the eastern section, and from the same room there was taken a string, over a yard long, made of human hair. It was suggested to me by one of the Hopi that this string was part of the coiffure of an Awatobi maid, and that it was probably used to tie up her hair in whorls above the ears, as is still the ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep and masculine. Everything about her was manly. She had a large, square, middle-aged face, with a massive projecting nose and little greenish eyes, the whole surmounted by a lofty and elaborate coiffure of a curiously improbable shade of orange. Looking at her, Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... overboard, and came up with the fairest face in the world, and presently acknowledged himself to be the Christian King of Castile.' The queen laughed at this story, but not answering me, went to bed. Next morning, when I entered her chamber, she received me with even more gayety, and putting aside my coiffure, said, 'Let me see if I can find the devil's mark here!' 'What do you mean?' I asked, 'does your majesty take me for a witch?' 'Exactly so,' she replied; 'for a little sprite told me last night that all you told me was true.' And then she began ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... at the barrier, a woman might not pass unless she was provided with an order signed by a Bakufu official. Moreover, female searchers were constantly on duty whose business it was to subject women travellers to a scrutiny of the strictest character, involving, even, the loosening of the coiffure. All these precautions formed part of the sankin kotai system, which proved one of the strongest buttresses of Tokugawa power. But, from the days of Ietsuna, the wives and children of the daimyo were allowed to return to their provinces, and under the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, the system ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... maid to Leontine de Serizy. Her fortune made, she became overbearing and received Oscar Husson, son of Madame Clapart by her first husband, with unconcealed coldness. She bought the flowers for her coiffure from Nattier, and, wearing some of them, she was seen, in the autumn of 1822, by Joseph Bridau and Leon de Lora, who had just arrived from Paris to do some decorating in the chateau at Serizy. [A ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... such an almost grotesque arrangement of coiffure should adorn the head of a man in modern evening dress. It should have been on some Byzantine saint. However, there he was, and entirely unconcerned at the ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... gears were of different kinds, according to their rank and dignity. Warriors seem to have used wide bands, tied behind the head with two knots, as we see in the statue of Chaacmol, and in the bas-reliefs that adorn the queen's chamber at Chichen. The king's coiffure was a peaked cap, that seems to have served as model for the pschent, that symbol of domination over the lower Egypt; with this difference, however, that in Mayab the point formed the front, and in ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon



Words linked to "Coiffure" :   ringlet, groom, chignon, wave, curry, Afro, rat, bang, roach, curl, bob, bouffant, pageboy, fringe, haircut, tress, beehive, whorl, twist, hair, Afro hairdo, lock, marcel, ponytail, thatch, braid, neaten, plait, scalp lock, pompadour



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