Word.ws English Dictionary

head start

head start noun: an advantage consisting in starting a competition or task earlier than might be expected; given (or taken), for example, prior to the beginning of a race.

Noun

head start (plural head starts)

  1. (idiomatic) An advantage consisting in starting a competition or task earlier than might be expected; given (or taken), for example, prior to the beginning of a race.
    • Fred gave his younger brother a five-minute head start in the Easter egg hunt.
    • I want to set off at dawn to get a head start over the competition.
    Synonyms:
    forestart
  2. (idiomatic) A factor conducive to superiority and success.
    • His father's money gave him a head start in life.

Proper noun capitalized: Head Start

Head Start

  1. (US) In the United States, a government-funded preschool program for impoverished children.
    • And what do you do about homelessness in Los Angeles? These are hard questions. We can’t even make Head Start work, despite many billions and a lot of well-meaning people spending their lives on it.2026 May 2, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, quoting Tucker Carlson, “Tucker Carlson Discusses Breaking With Trump, the Iran War and Antisemitism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Synonyms of head start

Forms of head start

pluralhead starts

Questions about head start

What does head start mean?
Head start means an advantage consisting in starting a competition or task earlier than might be expected; given (or taken), for example, prior to the beginning of a race.
What part of speech is head start?
Head start can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of head start?
The plural of head start is head starts.

Words near head start in the dictionary

  1. head shunts
  2. head shy
  3. head south
  4. head space
  5. head spaces
  6. head start
  7. head starts
  8. head station
  9. head stations
  10. head stay
  11. head tax

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: head start (page history and authors); Head Start (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: en-au-head start.ogg.

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