He ran his hand through his light brown...

[alpacinou]

I want to say a man ran his hand through his hair, but I don't want to use the word "hair". Is there a name for the hair on the upper part of the head? For example, if his hair were curly, I could say "He ran his hand through his dark curls."

What if the hair is not curly, like this image?




He ran his hand through his light brown...

What can I put in the blank?

 

[emsr2d2]

His hair's too short to run his hand through it. He's running his hand over his hair or over the top of his head.

 

[Barque]

Sometimes the word "mane" is used to describe a particularly full head of hair, but "He ran his hand through his mane" doesn't sound very good to me.

"He ran his hand through his unruly locks."

Just "locks" without a modifier in that sentence would also sound off to me.

I don't think there's a single all-purpose word that could replace "hair" here.

 

[SoothingDave]

I was also thinking of "locks" as a more poetic word. But I wouldn't use it for hair that short.

 

[Barque]

I wouldn't either--I was offering it as a possibility (if the hair was what could be called locks).

 

[alpacinou]

He's running his hand over his hair or over the top of his head.

Is there no word I can use instead of hair in that sentence?

 

[Barque]

We've given you a couple of possible alternatives. It depends on the sort of hair. There's no single general word that'll apply to different thicknesses or volumes of hair.