Head (disambiguation)

Encyclopedia : H : HE : HEA : Head (disambiguation)

Some dictionaries define nearly thirty meanings of the word head. However, a majority of usages are associated with the connotation of forward, top, essential, control, etc., which are derived from attributes of an animal head (or brain).

Contents

1 Meanings in the sciences
2 Technology
3 Culture
4 As a name
5 See also

Meanings in the sciences

In anatomy, the head of an animal is the superior part that bears the mouth, the brain and various sensory organs (e.g. organs of sight, hearing, smell and taste).
By extension, the word head can refer to the top of an object or to a protuberance near the top (head of a nail).
In botany, a head is a type of inflorescence, previously known as a composite flower — a structure composed of numerous individual flowers. A bulb of garlic is also called a head, consisting of many cloves.
In linguistics, the head is the main part of a phrase or compound. Based on this meaning, head-first and head-last are informal terms for right and left branching.
In fluid dynamics, hydraulic head refers to the constant right hand side in the incompressible steady version of Bernoulli's equation.

Technology

In internal combustion engines, the cylinder head refers to the part of an engine that is bolted to the engine block, over the pistons and cylinders.
In the Unix operating system, the head command provides the first few lines of a file.
HEAD is a request method in HTTP.
HEAD is a structural markup tag in HTML, immediately underneath the HTML tag.
A "head" can be a computer display.
Head can be shorthand for a drive head, the mechanism responsible for reading and writing the medium in magnetic disk drives. Less frequently, it is applied to the analogous mechanism in optical disk drives.
CVS HEAD
In photography, a fluid head or geared head sits between the tripod and the camera and is where most camera movement articulates from: usually this is pan and tilt, but it may include roll.
In audio and video tape recording and playback devices, the recording head is the electromagnetic mechanism that translates magnetic and electrical signals to and from the tape.

Culture

In the context of coin flipping, the heads (usually obverse) side of a coin (as opposed to the tails side) is the side with a person's head on it.
In organizational hierarchies, head is often a noun in a job description or an adjective (or occasionally a noun) in a title.
In jazz music, particularly bebop, the head is the repeated, non-improvised section of a composition that bookends individual solo passages, usually at the beginning and end of a performance or recording. It is similar to the chorus or hook in other musical genres.
In slang referring to human sexuality, head or more specifically "giving..." or "getting head", refers to the act of oral sex, being fellatio or cunnilingus, and can be applied to the act in any gender combination. It may originate from the idea of the "active" partner using (part of) their head for the benefit especially of the other, though the head, or glans of the male penis may have influenced the usage to some extent.
The word head can mean a person in slang, and is commonly found in compound words such as pothead or crackhead.
In sailing, "head" can mean:
*The head of a sail is its uppermost corner or, in the case of four-cornered sails, sometimes its uppermost edge.
*The head sail is a jib, spinnaker or any other sail set forward of the foremost mast.
*The head is the nautical name both for a toilet or latrine of a marine vessel, and for the structure projecting from the bows of sailing ships which served the same purpose for the crew.
In carbonated beverages and particularly beer, the head refers to the emulsion of liquid and carbon dioxide that forms at the top when the beverage is agitated, as when poured into a container. It can also be referred to as the foam, froth, or fizz of the drink.
Head (album), the first full album by The Jesus Lizard.

As a name

Head is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of premium sports equipment.
Head is the nickname of KoЯn's former guitarist Brian Welch.
Head is a surreally comic movie starring The Monkees. Head (Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the movie.
Human Head Studios is the name of a game making company.
Walter W. Head Boy Scouts of America member of the World Scout Committee of the World Organization of the Scout Movement from 1931 until 1939 and again from 1947 until 1949