frizz

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To fry or burn with a sizzling noise.
• intransitive verb To make a sizzling noise while frying or searing.
• transitive & intransitive verb To form or be formed into small tight curls or tufts.
• noun The condition of being frizzed.
• noun A small tight curl or tuft.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun That which is frizzed or curled; a wig, as covered with frizzes: as, a frizz of hair.
• To curl; crisp; form into a mass of small, loose, crisp curls, as the hair, with a crisping-pin; specifically, to crisp and then loosen out so as to form a light, fluffy mass of little curls.
• To form into little burs, prominences, or knots, as the nap of cloth; raise a nap or bur on.
• In leather-dressing, to remove the bur, prominences, or roughnesses from, as chamois and wash-leather, by rubbing with pumicestone, a blunt knife, or the like, in order to soften the surface and give a uniform thickness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• verb See friz, v. t. & n.
• verb To fry, cook, or sear with a sizzling noise; to sizzle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb Of hair, to form into a mass of tight curls.
• noun A mass of tightly curled or unruly hair.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the condition of being formed into small tight curls
• verb curl tightly