What does “Pferdeschwanz” mean in German?

Pferdeschwanz is German for “ponytail” — and it’s exactly as literal as it sounds: Pferd (horse) + Schwanz (tail). English and German landed on the same image independently, which makes this one of the easiest hairstyle words to remember: picture a horse’s tail swinging behind the head, and you’ve got both the word and the hairstyle.

The clip runs through a small hairstyle vocabulary set the same way — Seitenscheitel (side part, from Scheitel, “parting”), Dutt (bun), and geflochtener Zopf (braided plait, from flechten, “to braid”). Schwanz is the general word for an animal’s tail, so it also turns up in less flattering compounds like Fuchsschwanz (foxtail) — but for hair, Pferdeschwanz is the one everyone reaches for.