Dreadlocks
rope-like braiding hairstyle
Dreadlocks, also known as dreads or locs, are a hairstyle made of rope-like strands of hair. Locs can form naturally in very curly or kinky hair, or they can be created with techniques like twisting, backcombing, or crochet.
Etymology
The word dreadlocks is usually understood to come from Jamaican Creole dread, "member of the Rastafarian movement who wears his hair in dreadlocks" (compare Nazirite), referring to their dread or awe of God. An older name for dreadlocks was elflocks, from the notion that elves had twisted the locks in people's sleep.
In their 2014 book Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps claimed that the name dredlocs originated in the time of the slave trade: when transported Africans disembarked from the slave ships after spending months confined in unhygienic conditions, whites would report that their undressed and matted kinky hair was "dreadful". According to them, it is due to these circumstances that many people wearing the style today drop the a in dreadlock to avoid negative implications.
Other origins have been proposed. Some authors trace the term to the Mau Mau, a group from British colonialists in 1959 as a reference to their dreadful hair.
The word locs refers to locks of entangled hair.
Several languages have names for these locks:
Jaṭā In Sanskrit.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dreadlocks” as rope-like braiding hairstyle. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as rope-like braiding hairstyle. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q898801. The Library of Congress control number is sh94003063. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014 and 1959.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dreadlocks”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dreadlocks primary sources, Dreadlocks archive and Dreadlocks research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dreadlocks”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Dreadlocks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.