fauxhawk
n. A hairstyle in which a strip of hair across the top of the head is longer and higher than the hair on the remainder of the head.
Also Seen As
Pronunciation
Etymology
Examples
2003
Somewhere at the intersection of European sports fashion and Mr. T revivals stands a man or a woman with a fauxhawk. He might be a stock trader, she might be the lead singer in a local band, or they might be both. Either way, they are part of a hairstyle trend that has gained ground in Chicago — possibly too much for the fashionable set.

The name, of course, is a play on the mohawk style, which it resembles only in principle: The hair is noticeably longer on top than on the sides. But whereas a proper mohawk is completely shaved on the sides and drastically high in the middle, high enough to require egg whites or Elmer's glue to hold its shape, the fauxhawk simply requires hair that's longer where the mohawk would be.
—Whet Moser, “Last trends of summer: The fauxhawk,” Chicago Tribune, August 26, 2003
2003
Then there's the so-called fauxhawk, a new hairstyle that is just making its appearance on the East Coast.
—Sylvia Rubin, “City Slickers,” The San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 2003
1996 (earliest)
A girl dressed in a bright red crinoline and combat boots sits sleeping at a table with her head resting on her crossed arms. An outburst of applause wakes her with a start.

"Is it Everclear?" she asks urgently. "Are they next?"

"No, it's just Spacehog," says a frail-looking, black-haired moppet with a faux-hawk.
—Silke Tudor, “Night Crawler,” SF Weekly, August 07, 1996
Notes
As the first example citation says, a fauxhawk is a kind of fake mohawk which, if you somehow missed the whole punk thing, is a hairstyle in which the head is shaved except for a strip of hair across the top. The word mohawk has been strutting its stuff in the English language since about 1950.

If any one person can be blamed, er, I mean, credited with popularizing the fauxhawk, it's soccer star David Beckham, who sported the ’do during the 2002 World Cup tournament. In fact, in some parts of the world this hairstyle is known as a Beckham.
Filed Under