peruke means A wig, especially one with long hair on the sides and back, worn mainly by men in the 17th and 18th centuries. It carries an Arena rating of 1372, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, peruke ranks #1,338 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,381 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #3,059 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #5,015 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
peruke is pronounced /pəˈɹuːk/.
Why “peruke” is a great word
An elaborate, full-length wig worn as a fashionable signifier by gentlemen of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its etymology traces from French *perruque*, from Italian *perrucca* (“head of hair, wig”); it is a doublet of *periwig* and is first attested in English in the 1540s. Unlike a simple wig, a general term for any artificial head of hair, or a toupee, a discreet patch meant to conceal baldness, the peruke was an assertive declaration—a public architecture of hair. It was the powdered, scented, and towering mass of curls that framed a judge’s solemn pronouncement, that swayed above a minuet on a ballroom floor, and that gathered the dust and lice of an age pretending to perpetual order—a crafted persona donned each morning, an architecture of vanity built upon the bare facts of the scalp.
Etymology
From French perruque. Doublet of periwig.
noun
- A wig, especially one with long hair on the sides and back, worn mainly by men in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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