Entry · catalog no. 1021
conk
/ /
noun · Nationwide ·
✓ Verified
1.
A hairstyle in which naturally kinky hair is chemically straightened, usually with a lye-based relaxer called congolene, then slicked back or worn in a pompadour. Both the style and the process of getting it.
“He sat still while the conk burned, chasing that shine.”
Origin & Attribution
Named from congolene, the homemade lye straightener. Popularized in the 1920s by Black entertainers including Cab Calloway and worn widely through the early 1960s. Malcolm X devotes a chapter of his 1965 autobiography, "My First Conk," to the ritual and later renounces it as self-denial — a history the Black Power era answered with the Afro.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Nationwide ·
Spoken by
$CONKThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
The Autobiography of Malcolm X — book · 1965
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceConk hairstyle, Cab Calloway era — cultural history · 1920s
submitted
See also