overhead

Adjective

overhead (comparative more overhead, superlative most overhead)

1. Located above, especially over the head.
   • Place your luggage in the overhead lockers.
   • The railway consists of some 18 miles of double track electrified on the overhead principle.1957 June, F. K. Pearson, “The Manx Electric Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 425
2. Kicked over one's own head.
   • It was Rooney, however, who produced a moment of inspiration to score a stunning overhead kick that will live forever in the memory of United's fans and extended City's dismal sequence of only one league win in their last 27 visits to Old Trafford.2011 February 12, Phil McNulty, “Man Utd 2 - 1 Man City”, in BBC

Noun (1)

overhead (countable and uncountable, plural overheads)

1. (uncountable) The expense of a business not directly assigned to goods or services provided.
2. (countable) The items or classes of expense not directly assigned to goods or services provided.
3. (uncountable) Any cost or expenditure (monetary, time, effort or otherwise) incurred in a project or activity, which does not directly contribute to its progress or outcome.
4. (uncountable) Wasted money.
5. A smash.
6. The ceiling of any enclosed space below decks in a vessel.
7. A compartment above the seats for stowing luggage in a passenger aircraft.
   • There was no room left in the overheads for our luggage, our seats did not recline, and the washrooms were right behind us.2013, Rana Florida, Upgrade: Taking Your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary
8. The system of overhead wires used to power electric transport, such as streetcars, trains, or buses.
9. Data or steps of computation used only to facilitate the computations in the system and not directly related to the actual program code or data being processed.
   • Network overhead is the header data that is required to route and transport data over the network, whereas fork overhead is the additional time and memory cost of creating and managing new processes within the operating system.
10. (by ellipsis) An overhead throw.
11. A type of bridge, also commonly known as an overpass or flyover, which carries one form of traffic over another.

Adverb

IPA/ˌəʊvəˈhɛd/

overhead (comparative more overhead, superlative most overhead)

1. Above one's head; in the sky.
   • birds flying overhead
   • Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
2. (archaic) Per head; for each individual.
   • […] the influence of the minister's week-day attentions, first in creating, and afterwards in keeping up among the people of his parish their habit of Sabbath attendance. So indispensable in towns is the connexion between these two things, that were seat-rents let down at this moment to two...1838, Thomas Chalmers, On Church Extension, page 194

Preposition

overhead

1. Above.
   • Cigarette smoke was sucked out through the cracks in the glass of the glazed panes overhead the side street and the parking lot.1976 August 14, Matthew Wolfe, “Cruising a Tea Room or; Does Gertrude Stein Really Drink Coffee”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 7, page 15

Noun (2)

overhead (plural overheads)

1. (countable) An overhead projector.
2. (countable) A sheet of transparent material with an image used with an overhead projector; an overhead transparency.