Definition of "loc"

Thinning hair can be especially disconcerting when one is trying to wear 'locs, also known as dreadlocks, which I'd first begun in late 2001. […] I finally fetched the shears and, cringing, cut off each 'loc at the point where new growth was coming in.

2020 May 17, Helaine R. Williams, “LET'S TALK: Cutting 'locs good lesson in fulfillment”, in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette‎

Locs are another protective hairstyle that dates back to Africa. This rope-like hairstyle is achieved by matting the hair. Priests of the Ethiopian Coptic religion in 500 BCE wore locs, and the first archaeological evidence of locs comes from East Africa.

2021, Nadia E. Brown, Danielle Casarez Lemi, Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, page 25