Word.ws English Dictionary

making head against

making head against is the present participle and gerund of make head against.

Meaning of make head against

Verb

make head against (third-person singular simple present makes head against, present participle making head against, simple past and past participle made head against)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To attack or take up arms against (someone).
    • Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head / Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye / And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him / Bootless home and weather-beaten back.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  2. (figuratively) To resist, oppose.
    • Such is then this gallaunt and holie confidence of the spouse to braue her enemies, in whose person the Apostle speaking, wee see […] how hee beareth downe euerie high thing which presumeth to make head against God […]1600, Thomas Walkington (attributed), An Exposition of the Two First Verses of the Sixt Chapter to the Hebrewes in Forme of a Dialogue, London: Thomas Man, Sermon 26, p. 348

Questions about making head against

What is making head against the present participle and gerund of?
Making head against is the present participle and gerund of make head against.

Words near making head against in the dictionary

  1. making hard work of
  2. making haste
  3. making haste slowly
  4. making hay
  5. making hay while the sun shines
  6. making head against
  7. making head or tail of
  8. making headway
  9. making heavy going of
  10. making heavy weather
  11. making heavy weather of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: making head against (page history and authors); make head against (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.

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