head

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See also -head, head-, and Head

Contents

English [edit]

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Wikipedia

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Alternative forms [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Middle English hed, heed, heved, heaved, from Old English hēafod (“head; top; source, origin; chief, leader; capital”), from Proto-Germanic *haubudą (“head”), from Proto-Indo-European *kauput-, *káput (“head”), a variant of *kapōlo (“head, bowl”). Cognate with Scots heid, hede, hevid, heved (“head”), Old English hafola (“head”), North Frisian hood (“head”), Dutch hoofd (“head”), German Haupt (“head”), Swedish huvud (“head”), Icelandic höfuð (“head”), Latin caput (“head”), Sanskrit कपालः (kapāla, “cup, bowl, skull”), Hindi कपाल (kapāl, “skull”), and (through borrowing from Sanskrit) Japanese 骨 (kawara, “a covering bone: kneecap, skull”), 瓦 (kawara, “a roof tile”).

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

Wikipedia has an article on:

Wikipedia head (countable and uncountable; plural heads)

  1. (countable) The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
    Be careful when you pet that dog on the head; it may bite.
  2. (countable) Mental or emotional aptitude or skill.
    The company is looking for people with good heads for business.
    He has no head for heights.
  3. (countable) Mind; one's own thoughts.
    This song keeps going through my head.
  4. (countable) The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
    What does it say on the head of the page?
  5. The end of a rectangular table furthest from the entrance; traditionally considered a seat of honor.
    During meetings, the supervisor usually sits at the head of the table.
  6. (billiards) The end of a pool table opposite the end where the balls have been racked.
  7. (countable) The principal operative part of a simple machine or tool.
    1. The end of a hammer, axe, golf club, or similar implement used for striking other objects.
    2. The end of a nail, screw, bolt, or similar fastener which is opposite the point; usually blunt and relatively wide.
      Hit the nail on the head!
    3. The sharp end of an arrow, spear, or pointer.
      The head of the compass needle is pointing due north.
    4. (lacrosse) The top part of a lacrosse stick that holds the ball.
  8. The source of a river; the end of a lake where a river flows into it.
    The expedition followed the river all the way to the head.
  9. (Can we clean up(+) this sense?) The front, as of a queue.
    Because you got them all right, you can go to the head.
  10. Headway; progress.
    We are having a difficult time making head against this wind.
  11. The foam that forms on top of beer or other carbonated beverages.
    Pour me a fresh beer; this one has no head.
  12. (countable) Leader; chief; mastermind.
    I'd like to speak to the head of the department.
    Police arrested the head of the gang in a raid last night.
  13. A headmaster or headmistress.
    I was called into the head's office to discuss my behaviour.
  14. A headache; especially one resulting from intoxication.
    • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘Thrown Away’, Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society 2005 edition, page 18,
      he took them seriously, too, just as seriously as he took the ‘head’ that followed after drink.
  15. A clump of leaves or flowers; a capitulum.
    Give me a head of lettuce.
  16. (anatomy) The rounded part of a bone fitting into a depression in another bone to form a ball-and-socket joint.
  17. An individual person.
    Admission is three dollars a head.
  18. (uncountable, measure word for livestock and game) A single animal.
    200 head of cattle and 50 head of horses
    12 head of big cattle and 14 head of branded calves
    At five years of age this head of cattle is worth perhaps $40
    a reduction in the assessment per head of sheep
    they shot 20 head of quail
  19. The population of game.
    we have a heavy head of deer this year
    planting the hedges increased the head of quail and doves
  20. Topic; subject.
    We will consider performance issues under the head of future improvements.
  21. (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.
  22. (jazz) The principal melody or theme of a piece.
  23. (UK, geology) Deposits near the top of a geological succession.
  24. (medicine) The end of an abscess where pus collects.
  25. (uncountable) denouement; crisis
    These isses are going to come to a head today.
  26. A machine element which reads or writes electromagnetic signals to or from a storage medium.
    The heads of your tape player need to be cleaned.
  27. (music) The headstock of a guitar.
  28. (music) A drum head, the membrane which is hit to produce sound.
    Tap the head of the drum for this roll.
  29. (music, slang) A person with an extensive knowledge of hip hop.
    Only true heads know this
  30. (engineering) The end cap of a cylindrically-shaped pressure vessel.
  31. (automotive) The cylinder head, a platform above the cylinders in an internal combustion engine, containing the valves and spark plugs.
  32. A buildup of fluid pressure, often quantified as pressure head.
    Let the engine build up a good head of steam.
  33. (fluid dynamics) The difference in elevation between two points in a column of fluid, and the resulting pressure of the fluid at the lower point.
  34. (fluid dynamics) More generally, energy in a mass of fluid divided by its weight.
  35. (nautical) The top edge of a sail.
  36. (nautical) The bow of a nautical vessel.
  37. (nautical) The toilet of a ship.
    I've got to go to the head.
  38. (uncountable, slang) Fellatio or cunnilingus; oral sex.
    She gave great head.
  39. (slang) The glans penis.
  40. (countable, slang) A heavy or habitual user of illicit drugs.
    • 1936, Lee Duncan, Over The Wall, Dutton
      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.
    • 1968, Fred Davis; Laura Munoz, “Heads and freaks: patterns and meanings of drug use among hippies”, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, volume 9, number 2, page 156-64: 
      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."
    • 2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home, Simon & Schuster, page 177,
      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.
  41. (UK) A headland.
  42. (computing) The part of hard drives responsible for reading and writing data.

Quotations [edit]

See also [edit]

  • The human head.

  • A flower head.

  • Head of a comet.

  • Head of the line.

  • Arrow and spear heads.

  • Head of a hammer.

  • Head of a metal spike.

  • Head of the hip bone.

  • Head of a ship.

  • Head of a sail.

  • Head of a pressurized cylinder.

  • Head of a two-stroke engine.

  • Hydraulic head between two points.

  • A read-write head.

  • Head of a guitar.

  • Head of a drum.

Synonyms [edit]

Antonyms [edit]

Usage notes [edit]

  • To give something its head is to allow it to run freely. This is used for horses, and, sometimes, figuratively for vehicles.

Derived terms [edit]

Terms derived from head (noun)

Translations [edit]

part of the body
mental aptitude or skill
mental or emotional control
topmost or leading part
leader or chief
headmaster, headmistress
toilet of a ship
top of a sail
foam on carbonated beverages
end of hammer, etc.
the blunt end of a nail, etc.
capitulum
linguistics: morpheme that determines the category of a compound

Adjective [edit]

head (not comparable)

  1. Of, relating to, or intended for the head.
  2. Foremost in rank or importance.
    The head cook.
  3. Placed at the top or the front.
  4. Coming from in front.
    head sea
    head wind

Synonyms [edit]

Antonyms [edit]

  • (coming from in front): tail

Translations [edit]

of, relating to, or intended for the head
foremost in rank or importance
placed at the top or the front
coming from in front
slang: of, relating to, or for drugs or drug users

Verb [edit]

head (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.)
    Who heads the board of trustees?
  2. (transitive) To strike with the head; as in soccer, to head the ball
  3. (intransitive) To move in a specified direction.
    We are going to head up North for our holiday. We will head off tomorrow. Next holiday we will head out West, or head to Chicago. Right now I need to head into town to do some shopping.
    I'm fed up working for a boss. I'm going to head out on my own, set up my own business.
    How does the ship head?
  4. (fishing) To remove the head from a fish.
    The salmon are first headed and then scaled.
  5. (intransitive) To originate; to spring; to have its course, as a river.
    • Adair
      A broad river, that heads in the great Blue Ridge.
  6. (intransitive) To form a head.
    This kind of cabbage heads early.

Derived terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

(transitive) be in command of
(transitive) to strike with the head
(intransitive) move in a specified direction

Related terms [edit]

Statistics [edit]

Anagrams [edit]

Estonian [edit]

Adjective [edit]

head

  1. partitive singular form of hea
  2. plural form of hea
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