Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A skin lesion consisting of a hair follicle that is occluded with sebum and keratin, appearing black at the surface.
  • noun An infectious disease of turkeys and some wildfowl that is caused by a protozoan (Histomonas meleagridis) and results in lesions of the intestine and liver.
  • noun Any of various birds, such as the scaup, with dark head markings.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In entomology, the larva of an American tortricid moth, Eudemis vacciniana, which feeds on the leaves of the cranberry. Also called fire-worm.
  • noun A common name for comedo. See comedo.
  • noun A popular name of the scaups or sea-ducks of the genus Aithyia: as, the greater and lesser blackheads, A. marila and A. affinis. See scaup.
  • noun A local name in the United States of the black-headed minnow, or fathead, Pimphales promelas.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) The scaup duck.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine A comedo, a skin blemish, a type of acne vulgaris, where a pore becomes clogged with a dark, hard, cheesy keratin-filled substance forming a hard black "head" on the skin's surface.
  • noun A scaup: a kind of duck.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a black-tipped plug clogging a pore of the skin

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From black +‎ head.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word blackhead.

Examples

  • Extractions of active acne whether it is the pustule type we call a pimple or a comedone, which we refer to as a blackhead are tricky and unnecessary and can be unsafe too.

    Simple Skin Beauty Ellen Marmur 2009

  • Extractions of active acne whether it is the pustule type we call a pimple or a comedone, which we refer to as a blackhead are tricky and unnecessary and can be unsafe too.

    Simple Skin Beauty Ellen Marmur 2009

  • Extractions of active acne whether it is the pustule type we call a pimple or a comedone, which we refer to as a blackhead are tricky and unnecessary and can be unsafe too.

    Simple Skin Beauty Ellen Marmur 2009

  • When open, the plug is called a blackhead, closed, a whitehead.

    WebMD Health 2009

  • When open, the plug is called a blackhead, closed, a whitehead.

    WebMD Health 2009

  • The deeply-entrenched secretion then goes through a process of chemical change, making it appear black (what we know as "blackhead").

    Clearing out Acne with the Best Treatment 2007

  • And the racists in Sweden don't even go that far as to look at skin color: it is enough if your hair color is anything else than blond and you will be labeled a "blackhead" and supposed to be relegated to those functions you described as suitable for African_Americans according to the segregationist society of rural South Alabama of the 1950s.

    Rural Mexico revisited 2005

  • A blackhead is a pore that’s plugged with keratin.

    Simple Skin Beauty Ellen Marmur 2009

  • A blackhead is a pore that’s plugged with keratin.

    Simple Skin Beauty Ellen Marmur 2009

  • A blackhead is a pore that’s plugged with keratin.

    Simple Skin Beauty Ellen Marmur 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.