The AI-powered English dictionary
plural forelocks
The part of a person's hairstyle which covers the forehead. quotations examples
His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks / Round from his parted forelock manly hung / Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, lines 300-303
Doth he not know that GOD seeth? / Assuredly. Verily, if he forbear not, we will drag him by the forelock, / the lying, sinful forelock. / And let him call his council to assistance: / we also will call the infernal guards to cast him into hell.
1734, The Koran: Commonly Called the Alkoran of Mohammed, translated by George Sale, Sura 96, Congealed Blood
Warm with the blood of lads I know / Comes east the sighing air. / / It fanned their temples, filled their lungs, / Scattered their forelocks free;
1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, section XXXVIII
This little boy, still flicking his head to one side between sentences though the long blond forelock that once excused the tic had been cut […]
1978, Edmund White, chapter VIII, in Nocturnes for the King of Naples, New York: St. Martin's Press, page 135
The part of a horse's (or similar animal's) mane that lies on its forehead. quotations examples
[…] the gates themselves slowly parted, there appeared a large horse's head, with a plaited forelock under a decorated yoke, and slowly there rolled into the road a small cart, like those driven by horse-dealers, and higglers.
1898, Ivan Turgenev, translated by Constance Garnett, A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories, New York: Macmillan, page 146
Even Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of anything to say.
1945, George Orwell, chapter 5, in Animal Farm
A wedge pushed through a hole at the end of a bolt to hold it in place. examples
third-person singular simple present forelocks, present participle forelocking, simple past and past participle forelocked
To fix in place with a forelock (wedge) quotations examples
At one extremity each pair was firmly connected by a short, massive, iron link, of about two feet in length; and, at its opposite end, a large eye-bolt was driven into each stick, where it was securely forelocked.
1835, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 14, in The Monikins