Word.ws English Dictionary

pull one's head in

pull one's head in verb: to withdraw; to discontinue what one is doing or saying; to back off.

Verb

pull one's head in (third-person singular simple present pulls one's head in, present participle pulling one's head in, simple past and past participle pulled one's head in)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, figuratively) To withdraw; to discontinue what one is doing or saying; to back off.
    • I really should have pulled my head in once they produced that evidence.
    • “Come on. Get yer gear off. Get yer gear off like mine,” the fanstopper Australian shouted, standing and pointing to his own bare chest. Two of his friends pulled him back down into his chair.
      “Pull your head in,” one of them said.1968, John Rowe, Count Your Dead, published 2003, page 68

Forms of pull one's head in

third-person singular presentpulls one's head in
present participlepulling one's head in
past participlepulled one's head in
pastpulled one's head in

Origin of pull one's head in

Perhaps from the habit of soldiers poking their heads out of army troop trains to make smart remarks, or in reference to a turtle drawing its head inside its shell for protection. Australian from circa 1930.

Questions about pull one's head in

What does pull one's head in mean?
Pull one's head in means to withdraw; to discontinue what one is doing or saying; to back off.
What part of speech is pull one's head in?
Pull one's head in is a verb.
What is the past tense of pull one's head in?
The past tense of pull one's head in is pulled one's head in.

Words near pull one's head in in the dictionary

  1. pull one over
  2. pull one's finger out
  3. pull one's finger out of one's arse
  4. pull one's forelock
  5. pull one's hair out
  6. pull one's head in
  7. pull one's horns in
  8. pull one's oar
  9. pull one's own weight
  10. pull one's pud
  11. pull one's punches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull one's head in (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-pull one's head in.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pull one's head in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pull_one%27s_head_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.