a covering made of artificial or real hair worn on the head to change appearance, conceal baldness, or as a costume.
Short for 'periwig,' which comes from French 'perruque,' possibly from Italian 'parrucca.' The periwig became fashionable in the 1600s among European nobility, and 'wig' is just the clipped, casual version of this fancy word.
In the 1600s, wigs were so important to fashion that European gentlemen wore enormous curled wigs as status symbols—King Louis XIV made them famous—and the word got shortened from fancy 'periwig' to casual 'wig' as they became more common.
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