• back-comb

Fromback +‎comb.

backcomb (third-person singular simple presentbackcombs,present participlebackcombing,simple past and past participlebackcombed)

1. To holdhair and comb it towards the head, thus giving it abushier look.

   Synonym:tease

   • 2004,Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 5, inThe Line of Beauty […], London:Picador,→ISBN:

     Her dark-blonde hair, worn long at Oxford, had been cut andbackcombed, Diana-style, and quivered when she shook her head.

backcomb (pluralbackcombs)

1. The hairstyle produced by backcombing.
   • 2012, “Sex”, performed byThe 1975:

     You and your fit friends anyway / I'd take them all out any day / They all gotbackcombs anyway

3. (dated) Adecorativecomb worn as anornament and to secure ahairstyle.
   • 1876, Lex,Remarkable Criminal Trials in Bengal:

     There was a part of a bottle of liquor on the table—the furniture of the hall was disarranged—a pair of slippers, two small combs, and abackcomb were lying near an easy chair.

   • 1912,The Canadian Patent Office Record and Register of Copyrights and Trade Marks, volume 39, issues 1-6, page252:

     Abackcomb comprising a pair of oppositely disposed members of sheet material each provided with teeth along one margin, a pivot pin securing the members at one end in overlapping relation.

   • 1920,D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence,The Lost Girl, London:Martin Secker […],→OCLC:

     Her father had produced a pink crêpe de Chine blouse and abackcomb massed with brilliants—both of which she refused to wear.