Word.ws English Dictionary

gearhead

gearhead noun: a mechanical device used to increase the torque of gears.

Noun (1)

gearhead (plural gearheads)

  1. A mechanical device used to increase the torque of gears.
    • HLD has developed a linear belt actuator that circulates the belt in an unusual way, resulting in a gearing reduction of up to 40:1 without a gearhead.2007 December 17, “Animatics buys UK’s Harmonic Linear Drive”, in Drives & Controls, UK

Noun (2)

gearhead (plural gearheads)

  1. (informal) An enthusiast for new technology, or for motoring.
    • A self-proclaimed gearhead, Leno loves fast Fords and hot Harley-Davidson motorcycles.2000, "Ford Harley-Davidson Truck Rumbles Onto Web to Benefit Charities," PickupTruck.com (US), retrieved 23 Dec/07
    Synonyms:
    petrolhead

Noun (3) capitalized: Gearhead

Gearhead (plural Gearheads)

  1. A fan of the Gears of War media franchise centered on a series of video games.
    • It’s good to be free: Epic Games’ Gears of War is about to go weapons-free. The Xbox 360 smash has churned out sales of 2 million in just six weeks and soon enough, Gearheads will find free downloadable content on the Xbox Live Marketplace.2006 December 23, Tyler Todd, “Has Metal Gear gone semi-solid on PS3 for 2007?”, in The Gazette, Montreal, Que., page H4, column 3
    • For all you Gear-heads out there, Microsoft is going to release four new maps for “Gears of War” on the Xbox Live marketplace today.2007 May 3, Rich Janzaruk, “Gaming Guru”, in Times-Mail, volume 123, number 213, Bedford, Ind., page C2, column 2

Synonyms of gearhead

Forms of gearhead

pluralgearheads
pluralGearheads

Origin of gearhead

From gear + head.

From gear + -head.

Questions about gearhead

What does gearhead mean?
Gearhead means a mechanical device used to increase the torque of gears.
What part of speech is gearhead?
Gearhead is a noun.
What is the plural of gearhead?
The plural of gearhead is gearheads.

Words near gearhead in the dictionary

  1. geared turbofan
  2. geared up
  3. geares
  4. Gearhart
  5. Gearharts
  6. gearhead
  7. gearheads
  8. Gearheart
  9. Gearhearts
  10. Gearin
  11. gearing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gearhead (page history and authors); Gearhead (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Gearhead.wav.

Cite this entry: “gearhead.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gearhead. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.