Definition of "dreadlocks" [dreadlocks]

• A natural hairstyle in which the hair is twisted into long matted or ropelike locks. (noun-plural)
• A similar hairstyle consisting of long thin braids radiating from the scalp. (noun-plural)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In response to the derogatory history of the term dreadlocks, alternative names for the style include locks and African Locks."
• "In Jamaica the term dreadlocks was first recorded in the 1950s as a term for the "Young Black Faith", an early sect of the Rastafari which began among the marginalized poor of Jamaica in the 1930s, when they ceased to copy the particular hair style of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia and began to wear dreadlocks instead. [citation needed] It was said that the wearer lived a "dread" life or a life in which he feared God, which gave birth to the modern name"
• "Not even dreadlocks is ever referred to as Bob Marley but braids."