What does “grzywka” mean in Polish, and why is it a “little mane”?

When Hania’s dad accidentally cuts her hair at the salon, her mom panics over her grzywka — her bangs. The word is the diminutive of grzywa, “mane,” the long hair on a horse’s or lion’s neck. A grzywka is, quite literally, a small mane — the little sweep of hair that falls over the forehead.

Grzywa goes back to a Proto-Slavic word for the neck-and-mane area, shared with cognates across other Slavic languages. Once you know grzywka is just grzywa + the diminutive -ka, the same pattern unlocks countless other Polish diminutives — noga → nóżka (leg → little leg), for instance — one of the most productive endings in the language.