What does coifing mean?
Coifing is the present participle of the verb "to coif," which has two related meanings: literally, to cover or dress someone's head with a coif — a close-fitting cap, typically white linen, worn by women in medieval and early modern Europe — and, by extension, to style or arrange a person's hair. The word derives from the noun "coif," borrowed into English from Old French "coife," and its hair-related extension survives more visibly in the elegant French loanwords "coiffure" and "coiffeur." Today, "coifing" carries a somewhat formal, literary, or historical flavor: it appears most naturally in writing about period costume, portraiture, or old-fashioned grooming rituals rather than in casual conversation. A reader might encounter a sentence such as "the maidservant was coifing her lady before the ceremony," evoking an earlier era when a woman's coif signaled modesty, marital status, or rank. Though rare in modern speech, it remains a precise and evocative choice whenever head-covering or careful hairdressing is meant.
verbThe present participle of "coif": covering or dressing the head with a coif (a close-fitting cap), or, by extension, styling or arranging a person's hair.
- Covering the head with a coif, a close-fitting white cap historically worn by women.
- Styling, arranging, or dressing someone's hair (an extension of the noun sense).
"The costume designer spent the morning coifing the extras for the Tudor court scene."
"In the portrait, a maidservant is shown coifing her mistress before church."
"The salon was busy coifing brides and their mothers all morning."
Before hairdressers existed, there were women who made their living coifing noble heads — and the word for it comes from a humble medieval skullcap.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of coifing
The word traces back through Middle English to the Old French "coife," meaning a head covering, which itself may derive from Late Latin "cuphia," a kind of helmet cap, though the ultimate origin is uncertain. English adopted both the noun "coif" and the derived verb "to coif" in the medieval period, and the verb's sense broadened from putting on a coif to dressing the hair generally. The same French root later yielded "coiffure" and "coiffeur," borrowed into English in the eighteenth century.
Related word forms
How coifing is actually used
Both the verb "coif" and its participle "coifing" are somewhat formal or literary today; in everyday speech about hair, words like "styling" are far more common. The hair-styling sense is often reinforced by the related borrowings "coiffure" and "coiffeur."
Easily confused with coifing
"Coughing" is expelling air from the lungs noisily, while "coifing" means covering the head with a cap or styling hair; they look similar in print but share nothing in meaning.