Meaning
To relax and behave freely and naturally, casting off formality, restraint, or self-consciousness, especially after a period of being on one's best behaviour. Usually said of social situations, and typically constructed as 'let one's hair down' or 'let their hair down'. Informal and positive; used almost exclusively of unwinding socially or emotionally rather than of misconduct. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The image goes back to the seventeenth century, when women wore their hair pinned up in public and took it down only for brushing or washing - an act then specifically called 'dishevelling', a word which then referred to hair being unpinned rather than to general untidiness. The Phrase Finder's earliest reference to the practice is John Cotgrave's 1655 French-English treasury, which glosses 'descheveler' as 'to pull the haire about the eares'. The figurative phrase itself is much younger: Merriam-Webster dates the first known use of 'let one's hair down' in the idiomatic sense ('to act without pretense or self-restraint') to 1933. The popular embellishment that aristocratic women were somehow obliged by rigid etiquette to wear their hair up is a Victorian-style romanticisation; the documented core is simply the everyday intimacy of unpinned hair.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- let one's hair down
- let our hair down
- let their hair down
- letting your hair down
Usage Examples
- After months of exams, the students finally let their hair down at the end-of-term party.
- The conference dinner gives delegates a rare chance to let their hair down with colleagues.
- On holiday she lets her hair down completely, dancing until dawn with old friends.