Word.ws English Dictionary

price on someone's head

price on someone's head noun: a compensation for capturing or killing someone, especially a criminal.

Noun

price on someone's head

  1. (idiomatic) A compensation for capturing or killing someone, especially a criminal.
    • The police put a price on his head after he killed four innocent women.
    • "The price on our respective heads has more zeros in it than Pearl Harbor in 1941. Certainly there are safer places to 'get out.'"2005 February 6, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2023

Origin of price on someone's head

From the earlier punishment of beheading criminals. The usage of this idiom began in the mid-1700s.

Questions about price on someone's head

What does price on someone's head mean?
Price on someone's head means a compensation for capturing or killing someone, especially a criminal.
What part of speech is price on someone's head?
Price on someone's head is a noun.

Words near price on someone's head in the dictionary

  1. price matching
  2. price of admiralty
  3. price of eggs
  4. price of money
  5. price of tea in China
  6. price on someone's head
  7. price out
  8. price out of the market
  9. price point
  10. price pointed
  11. price pointing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: price on someone's 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-price on one's head.ogg.

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