head

adjective

best/most able
title implying leadership

L1409830 on Wikidata ↗

verb

lead
moving towards
hit a soccer ball with one‚Äôs head

L16899 on Wikidata ↗

noun

part of animal holding the brain
top of an object
leader of an organization
accumulated leaves, as in cabbage
unit of height in fashion illustration
functional or decorative part at the top of various tools and fasteners, as a pin or screw

L3532 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /hɛd/ / /hɛːd/ / /hed/

adj

Etymology: From Middle English heed, from Old English hēafod- (“main”), from Proto-West Germanic *haubida-, derived from the noun *haubid (“head”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian hööft-, West Frisian haad-, Dutch hoofd-, German Low German höövd-, German haupt-.

Foremost in rank or importance.
“the head cook”
“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.”
Placed at the top or the front.
Coming from in front.
“head sea”
“head wind”

name

A surname from Middle English, from residence near a hilltop or the head of a river, or a byname for someone with an odd-looking head.

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kap- Proto-Indo-European *káput Proto-Germanic *haubudą Old English hēafod Middle English heed English head From Middle English efd, had, hafd, heafd, hed, heed, hefet, heid, het, hevd, heved, hevid, hiede, hæfd, hæfedd, from Old English hēafod (“head; top; leader; origin”), from Proto-West Germanic *haubud, from Proto-Germanic *haubudą (“head”), from Proto-Indo-European *káput (“head”), from *kap- (“head; bowl, cup”). The modern word comes from Old English oblique stem hēafd-; the expected Modern English outcome for hēafod would be *heaved (similar to the Middle English word). Doublet of cape, capo, caput, chef, chief, and Howth. Cognates Cognate with Scots heid (“head”), Yola haade, hade, heade (“head”), North Frisian Haur, hood (“head”), Saterland Frisian Haud, Hööft (“head”), West Frisian haad (“head”), Alemannic German Haupt (“head”), Dutch hoofd (“head”), German Haupt, Häupt (“head”), Vilamovian hiöet, hiöt, huöt, huø̄t (“head”), Yiddish הויפּט (hoypt, “head”), Danish hode, hoved (“head”), Elfdalian ovuð (“head”), Faroese høvd, høvur (“head”), Icelandic höfuð (“head”), Jamtish huvu (“head”), Norwegian Bokmål hode, hue (“head”), Norwegian Nynorsk haud, hauv, hove, hovu, hovud, hue, huggu, hugu, hugud, huvu, huvud (“head”), Scanian huweð (“head”), Swedish hufvud, hufwud, huve, huvud, hövve (“head”), Crimean Gothic hoef (“head”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌳 (haubid), 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌸 (haubiþ, “head”); also Irish and Scottish Gaelic cuach (“bowl; dome (of head)”), Welsh cawg (“basin, bowl, vessel”), Latin capud, capus, caput (“head”), Greek κεφάλι (kefáli), κεφαλή (kefalí, “head”), Central Kurdish کاپۆڵ (kapoll, “skull”), Sanskrit कपाल (kapāla, “skull; bowl”).

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.”
“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.”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“The company is looking for people with good heads for business.”
“He has no head for heights.”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“This song keeps going through my head.”
““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.””
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“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.”
“"Now you have done it, Spuds," said Cripps. "You'll have an awful head on you tomorrow."”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“a laced head”
“a head of hair”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“Admission is three dollars a head.”
“[…] 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.”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“200 head of cattle and 50 head of horses”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
“We have a heavy head of deer this year.”
The part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“What does it say at the head of the page?”
“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.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“During meetings, the supervisor usually sits at the head of the table.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“Hit the nail on the head!”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“The head of the compass needle is pointing due north.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“Tap the head of the drum for this roll.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“The heads of your tape player need to be cleaned.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“Pour me a fresh beer; this one has no head.”
“He never learned how to pour a glass of beer so it didn't have too much head.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“A deep bed of this red sandstone occurs at the head of the Yen Shui valley, a few miles south of Ching-pien [translating 靖邊 /靖边 (Jìngbiān)].”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“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.”
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
The topmost, foremost, or leading part.
“In this repositary, the phenomena of nature are ranged under three principal heads.”
A leader or expert.
“I'd like to speak to the head of the department.”
“Police arrested the head of the gang in a raid last night.”
A leader or expert.
“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.”
A leader or expert.
“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.”
“I was called into the head's office to discuss my behaviour.”
A leader or expert.
“Only true heads know this.”
A leader or expert.
A significant or important part.
“The expedition followed the river all the way to the head.”
A significant or important part.
“Give me a head of lettuce.”
“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.”
A significant or important part.
A significant or important part.
A significant or important part.
A significant or important part.
“I've got to go to the head.”
A significant or important part.
“Heads. (Roofing.) Tiles which are laid at the eaves of a house”
A significant or important part.
A significant or important part.
“Holonym: phrase”
“Linguists will see that we reject some assumptions quite widely held in twentieth-century generative linguistics. The differences are sharp and explicit enough that they should provide grounds for discussion without causing confusion. For example, we do not believe subordinators (‘complementizers’) or coordinators (‘conjunctions’) are heads, and we treat every day as a noun phrase headed by day rather than a determinative phrase headed by every. […] That does not mean we are legislating a theoretical view: it is always possible to stop and ask whether certain facts about syntax are better explained under one theoretical conception rather than another.”
A significant or important part.
Headway; progress.
“We are having a difficult time making head against this wind.”
Topic; subject.
“We will consider performance issues under the head of future improvements.”
Denouement; crisis.
“These issues are going to come to a head today.”
“Northumberland, thou Ladder wherewithall / The 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 […]”
Pressure and energy.
“Let the engine build up a good head of steam.”
“How much head do you have at the Glens Falls feeder dam?”
Pressure and energy.
Pressure and energy.
Fellatio or cunnilingus; oral sex.
“She gave great head.”
“Danny got head last night.”
The glans penis.
A heavy or habitual user of illicit drugs.
“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.”
“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."”
Power; armed force.
“My lord, my lord, the French have gathered head:”

verb

To be in command of. (See also head up.)
“Who heads the board of trustees?”
“to head an army, an expedition, or a riot”
To come at the beginning or front of; to commence.
“A group of clowns headed the procession.”
“The most important items headed the list.”
To strike with the head
“to head the ball”
To move in a specified direction.
“We are going to head up North for our holiday.”
“We will head off tomorrow.”
To remove the head from (a fish).
“Near-synonyms: behead, dehead”
“The salmon are first headed and then scaled.”
To originate; to spring; to have its course, as a river.
“a broad purling river, that heads in the great blue ridge of mountains,”
“The Templeton heads in the Cloncurry ranges[.]”
To form a head.
“This kind of cabbage heads early.”
“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.”
To form a head (on or to); to fit or furnish (something) with a head.
“to head a nail”
To cut off the top of; to lop off.
“to head trees”
To behead; to decapitate.
“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.”
“If you head, and hang all that offend that way but for ten yeare together; you'll be glad to giue out a Commission for more heads”
To go in front of.
“to head a drove of cattle”
“to head a person”
To get in the front of, so as to hinder or stop; to oppose.
“The wind headed the ship and made progress difficult.”
To check or restrain.
To set on the head.
“to head a cask”