per·i·wig

(pĕr′ĭ-wĭg′)

A wig, especially a peruke.

[By folk etymology from Old French perruque; see peruke.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

periwig

(ˈpɛrɪˌwɪɡ)

(Clothing & Fashion) a wig, such as a peruke

[C16 perwyke, changed from French perruque wig, peruke]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

per•i•wig

(ˈpɛr ɪˌwɪg)

n.

a wig, esp. a peruke.

[1520–30; earlier perwyke, alter. of Middle French perruque peruke]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

periwig - a wig for men that was fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries

peruke

wig - hairpiece covering the head and made of real or synthetic hair

Translations

periwig

[ˈperɪwɪg] N → peluca f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

periwig

n (Hist) → Perücke f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

He wears an immense periwig, flowing down over his shoulders.

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Although he seemed, judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to have come from London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-grey periwig and pigtail.

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He has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose."

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I was not averse to a tradesman, but then I would have a tradesman, forsooth, that was something of a gentleman too; that when my husband had a mind to carry me to the court, or to the play, he might become a sword, and look as like a gentleman as another man; and not be one that had the mark of his apron-strings upon his coat, or the mark of his hat upon his periwig; that should look as if he was set on to his sword, when his sword was put on to him, and that carried his trade in his countenance.

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Then it was a strange sight to behold how the man of conventionalities shook the powder out of his periwig; how the reserved and stately gentleman forgot his dignity; how the gold-embroidered waistcoat flickered and glistened in the firelight with the convulsion of rage, terror, and sorrow in the human heart that was beating under it.

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The entrance hall was mostly stripped and empty; but the pale, sneering faces of one or two of the wicked Ogilvies looked down out of black periwigs and blackening canvas.

View in context

One account maintains another trophy was taken: what the looters thought was a human scalp hanging above the speaker's chair but which was, in reality, his periwig.

Sketches of parliament and parliamentarians past

(25) Marston's line is: 'you shall see me prove the very periwig to cover the bald pate of brainless gentility' (0.57-8).

John a Kent, the Wise Man of Westchester

On his head, in the fashion of the court of Louis XIV, is a superb, full-bottomed periwig, amid whose heap of ringlets his face shows like a rough pebble in the setting that befits a diamond.

Hawthorne's backwoods Puritan: "Sir William Phips" and the democratic clown tradition

'Here is nothing to be seen but a verdingale, yellow ruffe, and periwig ...

A bit of ruff: William Larkin's court portraits provide glorious reflections on early Stuart fashion

In the climactic murder scene, the vengeful hero stages a macabre parody of Elizabethan courtship, in which the poisoned skull, dressed like "some old gentlewoman in a periwig" (3.5.112), puts the "old surfeiter" (3.5.52) to sleep, permanently, with a kiss.

Age in lust: Lyly's Endymion and the Court of Elizabeth I

THE HISTORY PRESS has brought out a new edition of Fredric Boyce's SOE's Ultimate Deception: Operation Periwig ([pounds sterling]12.99) which was first, published in 2005.

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