9. A headland; a promontory; as, Gay Head. Shak.
10. A separate part, or topic, of a discourse; a theme to be expanded; a subdivision; as, the heads of a
sermon.
11. Culminating point or crisis; hence, strength; force; height.
Ere foul sin, gathering head, shall break into corruption.
Shak.
The indisposition which has long hung upon me, is at last grown to such a head, that it must quickly
make an end of me or of itself.
Addison. 12. Power; armed force.
My lord, my lord, the French have gathered head.
Shak. 13. A headdress; a covering of the head; as, a laced head; a head of hair. Swift.
14. An ear of wheat, barley, or of one of the other small cereals.
15. (Bot.) (a) A dense cluster of flowers, as in clover, daisies, thistles; a capitulum. (b) A dense, compact
mass of leaves, as in a cabbage or a lettuce plant.
16. The antlers of a deer.
17. A rounded mass of foam which rises on a pot of beer or other effervescing liquor. Mortimer.
18. pl. Tiles laid at the eaves of a house. Knight.
Head is often used adjectively or in self-explaining combinations; as, head gear or headgear, head
rest. Cf. Head, a.
A buck of the first head, a male fallow deer in its fifth year, when it attains its complete set of antlers.
Shak. — By the head. (Naut.) See under By. — Elevator head, Feed head, etc. See under
Elevator, Feed, etc. — From head to foot, through the whole length of a man; completely; throughout.
"Arm me, audacity, from head to foot." Shak. — Head and ears, with the whole person; deeply; completely; as,
he was head and ears in debt or in trouble. [Colloq.] — Head fast. (Naut.) See 5th Fast. — Head
kidney (Anat.), the most anterior of the three pairs of embryonic renal organs developed in most vertebrates; the
pronephros. — Head money, a capitation tax; a poll tax. Milton. — Head pence, a poll tax. [Obs.]
— Head sea, a sea that meets the head of a vessel or rolls against her course. — Head and shoulders.
(a) By force; violently; as, to drag one, head and shoulders. "They bring in every figure of speech, head
and shoulders." Felton. (b) By the height of the head and shoulders; hence, by a great degree or space; by
far; much; as, he is head and shoulders above them. — Head or tail, this side or that side; this thing or
that; — a phrase used in throwing a coin to decide a choice, question, or stake, head being the side of
the coin bearing the effigy or principal figure (or, in case there is no head or face on either side, that
side which has the date on it), and tail the other side. — Neither head nor tail, neither beginning
nor end; neither this thing nor that; nothing distinct or definite; — a phrase used in speaking of what is
indefinite or confused; as, they made neither head nor tail of the matter. [Colloq.] — Head wind, a
wind that blows in a direction opposite the vessel's course. — Out of one's own head, according to
one's own idea; without advice or coöperation of another. Over the head of, beyond the comprehension
of. M. Arnold. — To be out of one's head, to be temporarily insane. — To come or draw to a
head. See under Come, Draw. — To give (one) the head, or To give head, to let go, or to give
up, control; to free from restraint; to give license. "He gave his able horse the head." Shak. "He has
so long given his unruly passions their head." South. — To his head, before his face. "An uncivil
answer from a son to a father, from an obliged person to a benefactor, is a greater indecency than if
an enemy should storm his house or revile him to his head." Jer. Taylor. — To lay heads together,
