What does head mean?

What does head mean?. The world's largest and most trusted free online dictionary: definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more.

What does head mean? - The Free Dictionary

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[n] the upper part of the human body or the front part of the body in animals; contains the face and brains(he stuck his head out the window)[v] to go or travel towards(where is she heading We were headed for the mountains)[n] a single domestic animal(200 head of cattle)[v] be in charge of

head

head - The Free Dictionary

[n] the upper part of the human body or the front part of the body in animals; contains the face and brains
(he stuck his head out the window)

[v] to go or travel towards
(where is she heading We were headed for the mountains)

[n] a single domestic animal
(200 head of cattle)

[v] be in charge of
(Who is heading this project?)

[n] that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason
(his mind wandered I couldn't get his words out of my head)

[v] travel in front of; go in advance of others
(The procession was headed by John)

[n] a person who is in charge
(the head of the whole operation)

[v] be the first or leading member of (a group) and excel
(This student heads the class)

[n] the front of a military formation or procession
(the head of the column advanced boldly they were at the head of the attack)

[v] direct the course; determine the direction of travelling

[n] the pressure exerted by a fluid
(a head of steam)

[v] take its rise
(These rivers head from a mountain range in the Himalayas)

[n] the top of something
(the head of the stairs the head of the page the head of the list)

[v] be in the front of or on top of
(The list was headed by the name of the president)

[n] the source of water from which a stream arises
(they tracked him back toward the head of the stream)

[v] form a head or come or grow to a head
(The wheat headed early this year)

[n] (grammar) the word in a grammatical constituent that plays the same grammatical role as the whole constituent

[v] remove the head of
(head the fish)

[n] the tip of an abscess (where the pus accumulates)

[n] the length or height based on the size of a human or animal head
(he is two heads taller than his little sister his horse won by a head)

[n] a dense cluster of flowers or foliage
(a head of cauliflower a head of lettuce)

[n] the educator who has executive authority for a school
(she sent unruly pupils to see the principal)

[n] an individual person
(tickets are $5 per head)

[n] a user of (usually soft) drugs
(the office was full of secret heads)

[n] a natural elevation (especially a rocky one that juts out into the sea)

[n] a rounded compact mass
(the head of a comet)

[n] the foam or froth that accumulates at the top when you pour an effervescent liquid into a container
(the beer had a large head of foam)

[n] the part in the front or nearest the viewer
(he was in the forefront he was at the head of the column)

[n] a difficult juncture
(a pretty pass matters came to a head yesterday)

[n] forward movement
(the ship made little headway against the gale)

[n] a V-shaped mark at one end of an arrow pointer
(the point of the arrow was due north)

[n] the subject matter at issue
(the question of disease merits serious discussion under the head of minor Roman poets)

[n] a line of text serving to indicate what the passage below it is about
(the heading seemed to have little to do with the text)

[n] the rounded end of a bone that fits into a rounded cavity in another bone to form a joint
(the head of the humerus)

[n] that part of a skeletal muscle that is away from the bone that it moves

[n] (computer science) a tiny electromagnetic coil and metal pole used to write and read magnetic patterns on a disk

[n] (usually plural) the obverse side of a coin that usually bears the representation of a person's head
(call heads or tails!)

[n] the striking part of a tool
(the head of the hammer)

[n] (nautical) a toilet on board a boat or ship

[n] a projection out from one end
(the head of the nail a pinhead is the head of a pin)

[n] a membrane that is stretched taut over a drum

[n] oral stimulation of the genitals
(they say he gives good head)

Other vocabulary

'hood, human botfly, human chorionic gonadotrophin, human chorionic gonadotropin, human death, human dynamo, human ecology, human elbow, human face, human foot, human gamma globulin, human genome project, human growth hormone, human head, human immunodeficiency virus, human knee, human language technology, human nature, human palaeontology, human paleontology, human papilloma virus, human process, human race, human relationship, human remains pouch, human reproductive cloning, human right, human t-cell leukemia virus-1, human waste, human-centered, e, e layer, e region, e'en, e'er, e-bomb, e-commerce, e-mail, e-mycin, e. a. von willebrand, e. b. white, e. coli, e. e. cummings, e. g. marshall, e. h. harriman, e. h. weber, e. l. doctorow, e. o. lawrence, e. o. wilson, e. t. a. hoffmann, e. t. s. walton, e. w. morley, e.g., e.s.p., ea, each, each week, each year, eacles, eacles imperialis

Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.

There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.