Word.ws English Dictionary

take someone's head off

take someone's head off verb: to berate.

Verb

take someone's head off (third-person singular simple present takes someone's head off, present participle taking someone's head off, simple past took someone's head off, past participle taken someone's head off)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To berate.
    • Pat's Irish but don't hold it against him— he's likely to take your head off.'1998, Beverley Harper, Edge of the Rain
    • She should take his head off for that last remark, but darned if she didn't find him adorable instead.2009, Heidi Betts, Loves Me, Loves Me Knot: A Funny Sexy Yarn, page 190
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take off, head.
    • "That's fine," said the Scarecrow, and you are welcome to take my head off, as long as it becomes better when you put it back."1900, L. F. Baum, The Wizard of Oz
    • "When James hit him with that uppercut, they were right in our corner." recalled Russell. “And I swear to God, I thought [James] was going to take Tyson's head off.”2007, Joe Layden, The Last Great Fight

Forms of take someone's head off

third-person singular presenttakes someone's head off
present participletaking someone's head off
pasttook someone's head off
past participletaken someone's head off

Questions about take someone's head off

What does take someone's head off mean?
Take someone's head off means to berate.
What part of speech is take someone's head off?
Take someone's head off is a verb.
What is the past tense of take someone's head off?
The past tense of take someone's head off is took someone's head off.

Words near take someone's head off in the dictionary

  1. take someone to the grave
  2. take someone up short
  3. take someone's arm
  4. take someone's breath away
  5. take someone's fancy
  6. take someone's head off
  7. take someone's life
  8. take someone's name in vain
  9. take someone's part
  10. take someone's place
  11. take someone's point

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take someone's head off (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-take someone's head off.ogg.

Cite this entry: “take someone's head off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_someone%27s_head_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.