Word.ws English Dictionary

head

/hɛd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/hed/

head noun: the part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs. Also the ellipsis of headline.

head: the part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs
Image: Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

head (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.
    • 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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 175
    Synonyms:
    caput, pate, noggin, loaf, nut, noodle, bonce
    1. (people) Mental or emotional aptitude or skill.
      • The company is looking for people with good heads for business.
      • He has no head for heights.
    2. (figuratively, metonymically, people) Mind; one's own thoughts.
      • 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.”1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court
    3. (people) A headache; especially one resulting from intoxication.
      • 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., →OCLC, page 15
      • "Now you have done it, Spuds," said Cripps. "You'll have an awful head on you tomorrow."1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 117
    4. (people) A headdress; a covering for the head.
      • a laced head
      • a head of hair
    5. (figuratively, metonymically, people) An individual person.
      • 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.1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VIII, pages 196–197
    6. (animals, plural head) A single animal; measure word for livestock and game.
      • 200 head of cattle and 50 head of horses
    7. (animals) The population of game.
      • We have a heavy head of deer this year.
    8. (animals) The antlers of a deer.
  2. (countable) 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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter X, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 243
    Antonyms:
    base, bottom, underside, foot, tail
    1. 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.
    2. The end of a pool table opposite the end where the balls have been racked.
    3. The end of a hammer, axe, golf club, or similar implement used for striking other objects.
    4. 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!
    5. The larger-diameter end of an unused rivet, properly the factory head or ambiguously the shop head, as opposed to the bucktail which is passed through the items to be fastened and then upset into an appropriate shape, generally pancake-shaped for a solid rivet or doughnut-shaped for a blind rivet, called the field head or ambiguously the shop head.
    6. Either, or in plural both, ends of a used rivet, the factory head and the field head.
    7. The sharp end of an arrow, spear, or pointer.
      • The head of the compass needle is pointing due north.
    8. The top part of a lacrosse stick that holds the ball.
    9. A drum head, the membrane which is hit to produce sound.
      • Tap the head of the drum for this roll.
    10. 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.
    11. The part of a disk drive responsible for reading and writing data.
    12. The cylinder head, a platform above the cylinders in an internal combustion engine, containing the valves and spark plugs.
    13. A milling head, a part of a milling machine that houses the spindle.
    14. The foam that forms on top of beer or other carbonated beverages.
      • 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.
    15. The end cap of a cylindrically-shaped pressure vessel.
    16. The end cap of a cask or other barrel.
    17. The uppermost part of a valley.
      • 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)].1912, Robert Sterling Clark, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, Through Shên-kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in North China, 1908-9., T. Fisher Unwin, →OCLC, page 122
    18. (UK) Deposits near the top of a geological succession.
    19. Synonym of tidal bore.
    20. The end of an abscess where pus collects.
    21. The headstock of a guitar.
    22. The top edge of a sail.
    23. The bow of a vessel.
    24. (UK) A headland.
    25. A title or heading in a book or other document.
      • In this repositary, the phenomena of nature are ranged under three principal heads.1807, George Burnett, Specimens of English Prose Writers, page 351
  3. (countable, metonymically, social) 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.
    Synonyms:
    boss, chief, leader
    Antonyms:
    subordinate
    1. (metonymically, social) The place of honor or command; the most important or foremost position; the front.
      • 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. (Ireland, UK, metonymically, social) A headteacher.
      • 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...1992 June 24, Edwina Currie, Diary
      • I was called into the head's office to discuss my behaviour.
    3. (figuratively, metonymically, slang, social) A person with an extensive knowledge of hip hop.
      • Only true heads know this.
    4. (metonymically, slang, social, African-American Vernacular) An old head.
  4. 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.
  5. A clump of seeds, leaves or flowers; a capitulum.
    • 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...2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2013
  6. An ear of wheat, barley, or other small cereal.
  7. The leafy top part of a tree.
  8. The rounded part of a bone fitting into a depression in another bone to form a ball-and-socket joint.
  9. The toilet of a ship.
    • I've got to go to the head.
    Synonyms:
    big white telephone, bog, can, commode, crapper, crapper trapper, donniker, dunny, highway to hell, jacks
  10. (in plural) Tiles laid at the eaves of a house.
    • Heads. (Roofing.) Tiles which are laid at the eaves of a house1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, vol. II, page 1086
  11. (jazz) The principal melody or theme of a piece.
  12. 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.
    • 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’)...2022, Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, Brett Reynolds, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page xvi
Show 11 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. The first fraction of a distillation run, having a low boiling point.
    Synonyms:
    foreshot
  2. Headway; progress.
    • We are having a difficult time making head against this wind.
  3. Topic; subject.
    • We will consider performance issues under the head of future improvements.
  4. (singular) 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 […]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...
  5. A buildup of fluid pressure, often quantified as pressure head.
    • Let the engine build up a good head of steam.
    • How much head do you have at the Glens Falls feeder dam?
  6. The difference in elevation between two points in a column of fluid, and the resulting pressure of the fluid at the lower point.
  7. More generally, energy in a mass of fluid divided by its weight.
  8. (slang, uncountable, vulgar) Fellatio or cunnilingus; oral sex.
    • She gave great head.
    • Danny got head last night.
  9. (slang) The glans penis.
  10. (countable, slang) 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...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
  11. (obsolete) Power; armed force.
    • 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]...

Adjective (1)

head (not comparable)

  1. Of, relating to, or intended for the head.
    Synonyms:
    cephalic, capital

Verb

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?
    • to head an army, an expedition, or a riot
  2. (transitive) To come at the beginning or front of; to commence.
    • A group of clowns headed the procession.
    • The most important items headed the list.
    Synonyms:
    lead, front
  3. (transitive) To strike with the head
    • to head the ball
  4. (intransitive) To move in a specified direction.
    • We are going to head up North for our holiday.
    • We will head off tomorrow.
    Synonyms:
    seek, bear
  5. (transitive) To remove the head from (a fish).
    • Near-synonyms: behead, dehead
    • The salmon are first headed and then scaled.
    Synonyms:
    behead, dehead
  6. (intransitive) To originate; to spring; to have its course, as a river.
    • 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.
    • 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.1995, Anne Raver, “Gandhi Gardening”, in Deep in the Green: An Exploration of Country Pleasures, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN
  8. (transitive, usually) To form a head (on or to); to fit or furnish (something) with a head.
    • to head a nail
    • “Well, you see, jist as Larry Toole was come down from headin’ the last rick, an’ we war takin’ away the laddher, out comes the misthress herself - long life to her - by the light o’ the moon; an’, ‘Boys,’ sez she, ‘yez hav’ finish‘d the harvist bravely, an’ I invite yez all to dinner here...1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 514
  9. (transitive) To cut off the top of; to lop off.
    • to head trees
  10. (obsolete, transitive) 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.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 way
      but for ten yeare together; you'll be glad to giue out a
      Commission for more headsc. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  11. To go in front of.
    • to head a drove of cattle
    • to head a person
  12. To get in the front of, so as to hinder or stop; to oppose.
    • The wind headed the ship and made progress difficult.
  13. (broadly) To check or restrain.
  14. To set on the head.
    • to head a cask

Adjective (2)

head (not comparable)

  1. 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.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXXIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 307
    Synonyms:
    chief
  2. Placed at the top or the front.
    Synonyms:
    first, top
  3. Coming from in front.
    • head sea
    • head wind
    Synonyms:
    foot, tail

Proper noun capitalized: Head

Head

  1. 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.

Also used as

head is also the ellipsis of headline.

head meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

head in Hindi

part of the body
सिर sir, सर sar, खोपड़ी khopṛī, कपाल kapāl
topmost or leading part
शीर्ष śīrṣ
blunt end of a nail, screw etc.
माथा māthā
end of hammer, axe, golf club etc.
माथा māthā

head in Tamil

part of the body
தலை talai
headmaster, headmistress
தலைமை ஆசிரியர் talaimai āciriyar, தலைவர் talaivar
leader, chief, mastermind
தலைவர் talaivar

head in Marathi

part of the body
डोके ḍoke
mental aptitude or skill
डोके ḍoke
mind; one's own thoughts
डोके ḍoke
headmaster, headmistress
मुख्याध्यापक mukhyādhyāpak, हेडमास्तर heḍmāstar

head in Urdu

part of the body
سِر sir, سَر sar
individual person
رَئِیس
More languagesFewer languages
head in Bengali
মাথা matha
head in Telugu
తల tala, శీర్షము śīrṣamu, ప్రధానోపాధ్యాయుడు pradhānōpādhyāyuḍu, ప్రధానోపాధ్యాయురాలు pradhānōpādhyāyurālu
head in Malayalam
തല tala
head in Kannada
ತಲೆ tale
head in Punjabi
ਸਿਰ
head in Gujarati
માથુ māthu
head in Odia
ଶିର śira
head in Sanskrit
शिरस् śíras, शिर śira, ककुद् kakud
head in Sinhala
ඔළුව oḷuwa
head in Assamese
মূৰ mur, মাথা matha
head in Nepali
टाउको ṭāuko, शिर śira
head in Tagalog
ulo
head in Arabic
رَأْس raʔs, راس rās, دماغ demāḡ, رَئِيس raʔīs
head in Malay
kepala, hulu, ketua, menuju
head in Indonesian
kepala, hulu, ekor, pemimpin
head in Persian
سَر sar, کَلِّه kalle, رَئیس ra'is, فَراز farâz
head in Thai
หัว hǔua, ศีรษะ sǐi-sà, ครูใหญ่ kruu-yài, หัวหน้า hǔua-nâa
head in Vietnamese
đầu, con
head in Myanmar
ခေါင်း hkaung:
Sindhi
سر siru

Examples of head in a sentence

  • It's all about having a good head on your shoulders.
  • He's (the) head of a project here.
  • 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.
  • Where does the train head to?

All 40 example sentences with head

Synonyms of head

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of head

Forms of head

Noun
pluralheads
pluralhead
alternative UK pronunciation-spelling'ead
alternative Yorkshireheead
alternative form (archaic)hed
Verb
third-person singular presentheads
present participleheading
past participleheaded
pastheaded

Past tense of head: headed

Plural of head: heads or head

Origin of 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...

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-.

Words formed from head

Phrases with head

178 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with head

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about head

What does head mean?
Head means the part of the body of an animal or human which contains the brain, mouth, and main sense organs.
What is head in Hindi?
Head in Hindi is सिर (sir), सर (sar), खोपड़ी (khopṛī). See Head meaning in Hindi.
How do you use head in a sentence?
It's all about having a good head on your shoulders.
What part of speech is head?
Head can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce head?
Head is pronounced /hɛd/ (UK).
What is the plural of head?
The plural of head is heads.

Words near head in the dictionary

  1. Heacham
  2. Heacock
  3. Heacocks
  4. Heacox
  5. Heacoxes
  6. head
  7. head and ears
  8. head and shoulders
  9. head band
  10. head bands
  11. head bang

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: head (page history and authors); Head (page history and authors); head (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-head.ogg, en-uk-head.ogg.

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