naturalista means A person with Afro-textured hair who embraces their natural hairstyle; a follower of the natural hair movement. It carries an Arena rating of 1310, earned across 131 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, naturalista ranks #5,281 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #5,656 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #6,828 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #6,992 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
Why “naturalista” is a great word
NATURALISTA — [Noun] A person, especially of African descent, who embraces and wears their Afro-textured hair in its natural, untreated state, often as part of a cultural movement. From English natural (in the specific sense of a hairstyle for Afro-textured hair that is not straightened) + the suffix -ista (denoting an adherent of a movement or ideology). A piecewise doublet of naturalist. (First attested in the late 20th/early 21st century in the context of the natural hair movement.) Unlike a naturalist (who studies flora and fauna) or an afrocentrist (who focuses on broad cultural history), a naturalista makes a personal, political, and aesthetic declaration with the very crown of their head. It is the patient ritual of finger-coiling new growth, the defiant halo of a perfectly shaped afro catching the sun, and the quiet pride in resisting the chemical whisper of conformity—a daily, embodied reclamation of a self that was once legislated against.
Etymology
From natural + -ista. Compare natural (“hairstyle for people with Afro-textured hair in which the hair is not straightened or otherwise treated”). Piecewise doublet of naturalist.
noun
- A person with Afro-textured hair who embraces their natural hairstyle; a follower of the natural hair movement.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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