headless
English
Etymology
From Middle English heedles, hevedles, from Old English hēafodlēas (“headless”), equivalent to head + -less. Cognate with Dutch hoofdloos (“headless”), Danish hovedløs (“headless”), Swedish huvudlös (“headless”), Icelandic höfuðlaus (“headless”).
Adjective
headless (not comparable)
- Without a head; decapitated.
- How did the headless horseman see to chase Ichabod?
- Without leadership.
- The headless army blundered along after the death of their general, accomplishing nothing.
- (Can we date this quote by Sir Walter Raleigh and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
- His forsaken soldiers, being now a headless company, and no longer an army to be feared, obtained nevertheless a reasonable composition from the Carthaginians […]
- (linguistics, of a phrase or compound) Not having a head morpheme or word.
- (computing) Running without a graphical user interface; running without any attached output device (e.g., monitor) or input device (e.g., keyboard, mouse).
- 2003, William Boswell, Inside Windows Server 2003, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, page 62:
/redirect
. Used for console redirection in headless servers.
- 2007, Carla Schroder, Linux Networking Cookbook, O’Reilly Media (2008), →ISBN, page 47:
- Routers typically run headless, without a keyboard or monitor.
- 2010, Charles Bell et al., MySQL High Availability: Tools for Building Robust Data Centers, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 278:
- This is not unexpected for a Windows system running as a virtual machine or a headless server […]
- 2003, William Boswell, Inside Windows Server 2003, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, page 62:
- (of beer) Without a head of foam.
- (obsolete) Heedless.
- 1579, E. K. (Edward Kirke ?), Notes on Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender
- If any one will rashly blame such his choice of old and unwonted words, him may I more justly blame and condemn, either of witless headiness in judging, or of headless hardiness in condemning.
- 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepherd’s Calendar, John Ball, London, published 1732
- THENOT: Cuddy, I wot thou kenſt little Good, / So vainly to advance thy headleſs Hood.
- 1579, E. K. (Edward Kirke ?), Notes on Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender
Derived terms
Translations
without a head
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Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms suffixed with -less
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- Requests for date/Sir Walter Raleigh
- en:Linguistics
- en:Computing
- English terms with obsolete senses