“Syrup of figs” is a laxative preparation made from figs, once a common household remedy for constipation. In Cockney rhyming slang, though, the same words are used for something quite different: a wig. The phrase is very often shortened to just “syrup”, so that a person’s hairpiece becomes their “syrup” rather than the full “syrup of figs”. The choice of source phrase is a deliberate joke, since the thing it names literally is best known for having a rather different effect on the body.
What’s the origin of the phrase ‘syrup of figs’?
Like most rhyming slang, the phrase works by substitution rather than sense: “figs” rhymes with “wig”, so “syrup of figs” stands in for the word it echoes rather than describing anything to do with hair. The Free Dictionary’s idioms entry confirms this directly, explaining that the term comes from rhyming slang in which “figs” rhymes with “wig”. Wiktionary lists both senses side by side, the literal fig-based laxative and the Cockney slang term for a wig, showing that the two meanings have long sat together without being confused in practice.
Beyond the mechanics of the rhyme, the exact origin is not well documented. The slang-history website Idiom Origins dates the rhyming use of “syrup (of figs)” for a wig only broadly, to the mid-20th century, without pointing to a specific first printed source. The same site notes that the phrase later produced an offshoot, “golden syrup”, used for a wig that looks obviously fake rather than convincing, which extends the original joke about hair that clearly isn’t real.
As with other examples of this kind of wordplay, catalogued among Cockney Rhyming Slang terms, part of the effect depends on the real subject never being spoken aloud. Nobody using the slang sense actually says “wig”; the whole point is that “syrup” does the work instead, leaving the literal meaning of the phrase, the laxative, sitting quietly in the background as the source of the pun.