cornrow
noun, verb
cornrow is a noun meaning “One of a set of rows of tightly braided hair close to the scalp, forming a hairstyle, of African origin” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-O-R-N-R-O-W, and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of cornrow is cornrows.
What does cornrow mean?
noun
- 1
One of a set of rows of tightly braided hair close to the scalp, forming a hairstyle, of African origin.
verb
- 1
To braid the hair in this fashion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce cornrow?
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cornrow.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cornrow
- cornrows plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- cornrowing participle, present
- cornrowed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is cornrow?
Cornrow appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 146,811th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you abbreviate cornrow?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of cornrow: row.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cornrow in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense braided hair close to the scalp:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tresse africaine |
| German | Cornrow, Flechtreihe |
| Portuguese | trancinha de raiz |
| Spanish | trenza africana |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cornrow come from?
From corn + row, reflecting the figurative evocation of rows of corn in a cornfield.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).