woolly-headn.
/ˈwʊlɪhɛd/, U.S. /ˈwʊliˌ(h)ɛd/ Originally U.S. slang (depreciative and offensive).
A person with woolly hair, esp. a black person; hence, a nickname for an abolitionist in America.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > hair > types of hair > [noun] > frizzy > person having
woolly-head1859
society > authority > lack of subjection > freedom or liberty > liberation > [noun] > from slavery > abolition of slavery > one who
abolitionist1791
saint1830
immediatist1835
free-soiler1848
woolly-head1859
1859 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) Wooly-heads, a term applied in the first place to negroes, and then to anti-slavery politicians.
1864 Daily Tel. 20 Sept. I must do the American press the justice to say that..I get it quite as hot from the Woollyheads as from the Copperheads.
1884 19th Cent. June 993 Our friends the ‘woolly heads’ [sc. Arabs] are peeping at us from amongst the bushes.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1928; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1859