Definition of "head"

head¹

/ˈhɛd/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural heads or head
1. (countable) The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
  Quotations
  Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door. His temper had been getting raggeder all the time, and the sousing he got when he fell overboard had just about ripped what was left of it to ravellings.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients, page 175
  1. (people) To do with heads.
    Mental or emotional aptitude or skill.
    (figurative, metonymically) Mind; one's own thoughts.
    Quotations
    “Anthea hasn't a notion in her head but to vamp a lot of silly mugwumps. She's set her heart on that tennis bloke […] whom the papers are making such a fuss about.”
    1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court
    A headache; especially one resulting from intoxication.
    Quotations
    He found whist, and gymkhanas, and things of that kind (meant to amuse one after office) good; but he took them seriously, too, just as seriously as he took the “head” that followed after drink.
    1888, Rudyard Kipling, “Thrown Away”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co., page 15
    "Mornin', Tom," he said in a husky voice. Then as the wife left the room: "Got a drop of Scotch about? I've a head on me this morning."
    1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
    A headdress; a covering for the head.
    (figurative, metonymically) An individual person.
    Quotations
    […] but here we are obliged to diſcloſe ſome Maxims, which Publicans hold to be the grand Myſteries of their Trade. […] And, laſtly, if any of their Gueſts call but for little, to make them pay a double Price for every Thing they have ; ſo that the Amount by the Head may be much the ſame.
    1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], book VIII, pages 196–197
  2. (animals) To do with heads.
    (plural head, measure word for livestock and game) A single animal.
    The population of game.
    The antlers of a deer.
2. (countable) The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
  Quotations
  Men that I knew around Wapatomac didn't wear high, shiny plug hats, nor yeller spring overcoats, nor carry canes with ivory heads as big as a catboat's anchor, as you might say.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 10, in Mr. Pratt's Patients, page 243
  1. The end of a table.
    The end of a rectangular table furthest from the entrance; traditionally considered a seat of honor.
    (billiards) The end of a pool table opposite the end where the balls have been racked.
  2. (countable) The principal operative part of a machine or tool.
    The end of a hammer, axe, golf club, or similar implement used for striking other objects.
    The end of a nail, screw, bolt, or similar fastener which is opposite the point; usually blunt and relatively wide.
    The sharp end of an arrow, spear, or pointer.
    (lacrosse) The top part of a lacrosse stick that holds the ball.
    (music) A drum head, the membrane which is hit to produce sound.
    A machine element which reads or writes electromagnetic signals to or from a storage medium.
    (computing) The part of a disk drive responsible for reading and writing data.
    (automotive) The cylinder head, a platform above the cylinders in an internal combustion engine, containing the valves and spark plugs.
    (machining) A milling head, a part of a milling machine that houses the spindle.
  3. (uncountable, countable) The foam that forms on top of beer or other carbonated beverages.
  4. (engineering) The end cap of a cylindrically-shaped pressure vessel.
  5. (coopering) The end cap of a cask or other barrel.
  6. (geology) The uppermost part of a valley.
  7. (Britain, geology) Deposits near the top of a geological succession.
  8. (journalism) Short for headline.
    Quotations
    The content of a headline over a news story should be taken from the lead of the story. […] The head should give the same impression as the body of the story.
    1968, Earl English, Clarence Hach, Scholastic Journalism, page 166
  9. (medicine) The end of an abscess where pus collects.
  10. (music) The headstock of a guitar.
  11. (nautical) A leading component.
    The top edge of a sail.
    The bow of a vessel.
  12. (Britain) A headland.
3. (social, countable, metonymically) A leader or expert.
  1. The place of honour, or of command; the most important or foremost position; the front.
    Quotations
    We saw the last Campaign that an Army of Fourscore Thousand of the best Troops in Europe, with the Duke of Marlborough at the Head of them, cou'd do nothing against an Enemy that were too numerous to be assaulted in their Camps, or attack'd in their Strong Holds.
    1708, Joseph Addison, The present state of the war, and the necessity of an augmentation, consider'd‎, page 33
  2. (metonymically) Leader; chief; mastermind.
    Quotations
    “I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but I do know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery. […] ”
    1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients, pages 153–154
  3. (metonymically) A headmaster or headmistress.
    Quotations
    At 4pm, the phone went. It was The Sun: 'We hear your daughter's been expelled for cheating at her school exams...'She'd made a remark to a friend at the end of the German exam and had been pulled up for talking.As they left the exam room, she muttered that the teacher was a 'twat'. He heard and flipped—a pretty stupid thing to do, knowing the kids were tired and tense after exams. Instead of dropping it, the teacher complained to the Head and Deb was carpeted.
    1992 June 24, Edwina Currie, Diary
  4. (music, slang, figurative, metonymically) A person with an extensive knowledge of hip hop.
4. A significant or important part.
  1. A beginning or end, a protuberance.
    The source of a river; the end of a lake where a river flows into it.
    A clump of seeds, leaves or flowers; a capitulum.
    Quotations
    Plant breeding is always a numbers game. […] The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […] . In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new mutations, or they can be existing ones that are neutral—or are even selected against—in a wild population. A good example is mutations that disrupt seed dispersal, leaving the seeds on the heads long after they are ripe.
    2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3
    An ear of wheat, barley, or other small cereal.
    The leafy top part of a tree.
    (anatomy) The rounded part of a bone fitting into a depression in another bone to form a ball-and-socket joint.
    (nautical) The toilet of a ship.
    (in the plural) Tiles laid at the eaves of a house.
    Quotations
    Heads. (Roofing.) Tiles which are laid at the eaves of a house
    1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, vol. II, page 1086
  2. A component.
    (jazz) The principal melody or theme of a piece.
    (linguistics) A morpheme that determines the category of a compound or the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member.
5. Headway; progress.
6. Topic; subject.
7. (only in the singular) Denouement; crisis.
  Quotations
  Northumberland, thou Ladder wherewithallThe mounting Bullingbrooke aſcends my Throne,The time ſhall not be many houres of age,More then it is, ere foule ſinne, gathering head,Shall breake into corruption […]
  1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i], page 41
  The indiſpoſition which has long hung upon me, is at laſt grown to ſuch an head, that it muſt quickly make an end of me, or of itſelf.
  1712 October 18, anonymous letter in The Spectator, edited by Joseph Addison, no. 513, collected in The Works of the Late Right Honorable Joseph Addison, Esq, Birmingham: John Baskerville, published 1761, volume IV, page 10
8. (fluid dynamics) Pressure and energy.
  1. (uncountable, countable) A buildup of fluid pressure, often quantified as pressure head.
  2. The difference in elevation between two points in a column of fluid, and the resulting pressure of the fluid at the lower point.
  3. More generally, energy in a mass of fluid divided by its weight.
9. (slang, uncountable) Fellatio or cunnilingus; oral sex.
10. (slang) The glans penis.
11. (slang, countable) A heavy or habitual user of illicit drugs.
  Quotations
  Then I saw the more advanced narcotic addicts, who shot unbelievable doses of powerful heroin in the main line – the vein of their arms; the hysien users; chloroform sniffers, who belonged to the riff-raff element of the dope chippeys, who mingled freely with others of their kind; canned heat stiffs, paragoric hounds, laudanum fiends, and last but not least, the veronal heads.
  1936, Lee Duncan, Over The Wall, Dutton
  The term, "head," is, of course, not new with hippies. It has a long history among drug users generally, for whom it signified a regular, experienced user of any illegal drug—e.g., pot "head," meth "head," smack (heroin) "head."
  1968, Fred Davis with Laura Munoz, “Heads and freaks: patterns and meanings of drug use among hippies”, in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, volume 9, number 2, pages 156–64
  The hutch now looks like a “Turkish bath,” and the heads have their arms around one another, passing the pipe and snapping their fingers as they sing Smokey Robinson's “Tracks of My Tears” into the night.
  2004, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home […] , Simon & Schuster, page 177
12. (obsolete) Power; armed force.
  Quotations
  My lord, my lord, the French have gathered head:
  1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iv], page 100
adjective
not comparable
1. Of, relating to, or intended for the head.
verb
third-person singular simple present heads, present participle heading, simple past and past participle headed
1. (transitive) To be in command of. (See also head up.)
2. (transitive) To come at the beginning or front of; to commence.
  Quotations
  When it arrived, the train was headed by a "K" class 4-6-0 wood-burning locomotive, and a water-tank wagon next to the tender was immediately besieged by women and girls, clad in their picturesque national costume, all with empty kerosene tins for water, a scene which was re-enacted at each stop down the line.
  1943 November and December, G. T. Porter, “The Lines Behind the Lines in Burma”, in Railway Magazine, page 325
  The citations are set in smaller font, start on a new indented line and are headed with a date.
  2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, page 491
3. (transitive) To strike with the head; as in soccer, to head the ball
4. (intransitive) To move in a specified direction.
  Quotations
  To the left towers the Jungfrau, with the train heading directly towards it.
  1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 752
5. (fishing) To remove the head from a fish.
6. (intransitive) To originate; to spring; to have its course, as a river.
  Quotations
  a broad purling river, that heads in the great blue ridge of mountains,
  1775, James Adair, The History of the American Indians‎, page 223
  The Templeton heads in the Cloncurry ranges[.]
  1934, Henry G. Lamond, An Aviary on the Plains, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 156
7. (intransitive) To form a head.
  Quotations
  To be honest, this hasn't been my Garden of Eden year. […] The lettuce turned bitter and bolted. The Green Comet broccoli was good, but my coveted Romanescos never headed up.
  1995, Anne Raver, “Gandhi Gardening”, in Deep in the Green: An Exploration of Country Pleasures, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf
8. (transitive) To form a head to; to fit or furnish with a head.
9. (transitive) To cut off the top of; to lop off.
10. (transitive, obsolete) To behead; to decapitate.
  Quotations
  I tell thee, man of God, the uncharitableness of the sect to which thou pertainest has thronged the land of punishment as much as those who headed, and hanged, and stabbed, and shot, and tortured.
  1822, Allan Cunningham, “Ezra Peden”, in Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry, volume 1, page 37
  If you head, and hang all that offend that waybut for ten yeare together; you'll be glad to giue out aCommission for more heads
  c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]
11. To go in front of.
12. To get in the front of, so as to hinder or stop; to oppose.
13. (by extension) To check or restrain.
14. To set on the head.

head²

/ˈhɛd/

adjective
not comparable
1. Foremost in rank or importance.
  Quotations
  At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.
  1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXXIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 307
2. Placed at the top or the front.
3. Coming from in front.

Definition of "head"

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