mullet

/ˈmʌlət/

/ˈmʌlɪt/

Other forms: mullets

Business in the front; party in the back. The mullet is a popular men's hairstyle from the 1980s, which is short on the sides and long in the back.

For seven hundred years, mullet has referred to a fish, but since 1994 it has taken off as a way to describe a hairstyle. For anyone who lived through the 1980s, it can be hard to believe that the word mullet was not circulating as a haircut descriptor during the decade when the haircuts were popular. But no reference to mullet as a hairstyle appeared in print before the 1994 Beastie Boys 1994 song "Mullet Head" dubbed it "a way of life."

Definitions of mullet

1. noun

   freshwater or coastal food fishes with a spindle-shaped body; found worldwide
   synonyms: gray mullet, grey mullet

   types:

   Mugil cephalus, striped mullet

   most important commercial mullet in eastern United States

   Mugil curema, white mullet

   silvery mullet of Atlantic and Pacific coasts

   Mugil liza, liza

   similar to the striped mullet and takes its place in the Caribbean region

   type of:

   percoid, percoid fish, percoidean

   any of numerous spiny-finned fishes of the order Perciformes
2. noun

   bottom dwelling marine warm water fishes with two barbels on the chin
   types:

   Mullus surmuletus, goatfish, red mullet, surmullet

   brightly colored tropical fishes with chin barbels

   Mullus auratus, red goatfish

   body bright scarlet with 2 yellow to reddish strips on side

   Mulloidichthys martinicus, yellow goatfish

   schooling goatfish; greyish with yellow stripe

   type of:

   bottom-dweller, bottom-feeder

   a fish that lives and feeds on the bottom of a body of water

   percoid, percoid fish, percoidean

   any of numerous spiny-finned fishes of the order Perciformes
3. noun

   highly valued lean flesh of marine or freshwater mullet
   synonyms: gray mullet, grey mullet

   type of:

   fish

   the flesh of fish used as food
4. noun

   a hairstyle in which the hair is left long at the back but cut short on the top and sides
   type of:

   coif, coiffure, hair style, hairdo, hairstyle

   the arrangement of the hair (especially a woman's hair)