Tuesday 22 September 2015

Four Towheads

What's a towhead?  According to the Oxford Dictionary; a head of tow-coloured or very blond hair, or a person with such hair.

What does tow-coloured mean? Once flax, jute or hemp fibres have been retted (soaked) and prepared for spinning into textiles or ropes, the fibres are very light in colour and are known as tow. The noun “tow” used in the fiber sense came into English in the 14th century. The word may be related to the Old Norse noun , which meant “uncleansed wool or flax, unworked fibre of thread.” 





Any towheads in your family?

12 comments:

  1. Wow, they have so beautiful silky tow-colored hair! And each of their hair style is so stylish. All my family have black or dark brown hair which is common in my part of the world except when you have your hair dyed.

    Yoko

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  2. How adorable, Sham. It's great to see a pic of them altogether. And YES. Both of my kids were towheads (and we called them such) when they were little. Not now but they had their day, for sure, especially in sunny California as kids! :)

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  3. No towheads around here. I didn't even know what the word meant for a long time.

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  4. Loved hearing where the term came from.
    My eldest brother was apparently white-haired as a youngster, but soon reverted to the family brunettedom.

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  5. How adorable! Those photos taken from top , from back and from front make me smile.
    All mu family have black hair.My hair color is changing to gray though.

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  6. They are adorable!
    Love all these photos!
    Did you know that Sofia and Fernando had blond hair when they were little kids?

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  7. I'm definitely not a tow head, I'm just a baldy-headed-old-git now, although I was blond haired blue blue eyed youth many moons ago. I think I would have fitted in with the Hitler Youth easily!

    I am a robot!

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  8. My boys were towheads as babies..at least after they sprouted hair...Now both are "dish-water blonds", leaning more to brown.

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  9. All 4 are adorable!
    We had a couple of nieces and nephews on Jimmy's side of the family, but most have darkened a bit as they get older. The youngest nephew is still blonde and we have an 18 year old niece who's still blonde, too.

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  10. No, my family are all either brunettes or gingers. On MY WIFE's side, a few - but they all seem to darken considerably as they age.

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