Word.ws English Dictionary

over the head

over the head prepositional phrase: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see over, the, head.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see over, the, head.
    • She hit me over the head with a baseball bat.
  2. Dished out in an overly censorious way.
    • After I said that, they would not give me a break. They just kept beating me over the head with it.
    • Her exploration of emotion, too, is slightly muted. You have to stop and consult yourself. Pain — or joy or passion — creep up afterwards. These poems never hit you over the head.1982 August 28, Andrea Loewenstein, “Becker's Experience Talks Back”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 7, page 11

Questions about over the head

What does over the head mean?
Over the head means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see over, the, head.
What part of speech is over the head?
Over the head is a prepositional phrase.

Words near over the head in the dictionary

  1. over the bender
  2. over the board
  3. over the counter
  4. over the edge
  5. over the fence
  6. over the head
  7. over the hill
  8. over the hills and far away
  9. over the hump
  10. over the left
  11. over the left shoulder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: over the head (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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Cite this entry: “over the head.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/over_the_head. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.