What Do You Call a Bun in the Late 1840's?

RationalIdealist said:

I was going with chignon so far, but today I found out it was mainly popular in the 1780's, 1870's, and 1940's. Ergo, I would rather not use this term. Our present day "bun" didn't come into common use until 1894. So what word can I use that will make readers understand what I mean?

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I don't know; you might look up 1840s hairstyles and see what they were called. Are you talking about a formal hairstyle or not?

I'm posting because I do know that chignon and bun aren't the same thing, at all. Hence I don't think the way you're going about this is going to help.

A knot? Hmm.

I second "knot". I've seen that used in old documents. Depending on where it was on the head, it was usually called a top knot or a back knot. "Puffs" and "frizzes" were mentioned a lot too. Find an old newspaper archive online and search under "coiffure". There were always articles in newspapers describing popular fashion and hairstyles.

A book on historical fashions might help as well.

Also, depending on context, you could avoid it entirely. "She put her hair up..." or similar.

I bet you any money there'll be regional variation.... and possibly by social class as well.
I'd either go into the primary sources, or just go with either knot or chignon depending on the characters.

Ballerina ... ??

Lol, I thought the question was going to be about bread too, until I read the post.

Goodness, I don't know. I didn't realize bun was such a recent term for the hairdo. I've certainly run across the term in historic fiction, but anachronisms are nothing new. I suppose one could get away with it in stuff set in an older period, because of the translation into modern English issue. But not if the story's set in the 1700 or 1800s before the term became commonplace.

Topknot? Or simply described as it appears: hair pulled back into a tight knot at the back of her head?

Or was this style even something people wore much before the term was coined? Sometimes terminology follows necessity, and we don't invent words for things we simply have little concept of. Adult women wore their hair braided or covered a lot prior to the mid to late1800s, didn't they? Or swept up into more elaborate styles?

Roxxsmom said:

Or was this style even something people wore much before the term was coined? Sometimes terminology follows necessity, and we don't invent words for things we simply have little concept of. Adult women wore their hair braided or covered a lot prior to the mid to late1800s, didn't they? Or swept up into more elaborate styles?

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When I've been researching Roman women's hairstyles, I've read the term 'bun' (think it was more common to un married girls.) I think I got around it by saying something like 'her hair was gathered up at the back, and worn in a tightly pinned roll." (Roman matrons were also known to wear their hair curled, and piled up into a crown.)

Having looked up the etymology the word seems to date to 1894. The word 'bun' does exist prior to that, but seems to mean "swelling from a blow, bump on the head," dating from the late 14th century.

If it's to give me the, the reader, an image, mentioned once and and not mentioned in dialogue to another character, what's wrong with using an image the reader would recognize?

If I read 'she pinned her hair up into a bun' I would know what you meant, although by a bun I would assume she created a doughnut-sized ring of hair on the back her head.

Depends what image you want to give. If the hair is more piled or gathered and sculpted in height on the top of her head then a bun description would be wrong for me, whereas the description just used would let me know what to envisage.

Good luck.
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Bufty said:

If it's to give me the, the reader, an image, mentioned once and and not mentioned in dialogue to another character, what's wrong with using an image the reader would recognize?
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I agree with Bufty. If you are describing a hairstyle to the reader then I think the term bun would be sufficient. However, if the character is referencing the hairstyle in dialogue then you might want to find a more specific term better suited to her time period.

gothicangel said:

When I've been researching Roman women's hairstyles, I've read the term 'bun' (think it was more common to un married girls.) I think I got around it by saying something like 'her hair was gathered up at the back, and worn in a tightly pinned roll." (Roman matrons were also known to wear their hair curled, and piled up into a crown.)

Having looked up the etymology the word seems to date to 1894. The word 'bun' does exist prior to that, but seems to mean "swelling from a blow, bump on the head," dating from the late 14th century.

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Well, when you're writing a story set in Roman times, you're translating what they would have called it into modern English anyway. I wouldn't find the use of a term like "bun" as jarring in that context as I would in a story set in 1800, where people would have been speaking a fairly modern and recognizable form of English, but they did not yet have this word.