eldertongue

Old English · noun

heafod

Normalised hēafod

Part of speech
noun, neuter
Declension
strong a-stem
IPA
/ˈxæ͜ɑː.fod/
[ˈhæ͜ɑː.vod]
Syllables
ˈxæ͜ɑː · fod (2 syllables)
Modern English
head'eadhedheeadsource

Meaning

  1. head

    Mīn hēafod hē hæfþ mid his ċeaflum befangen.

    It has seized my head in its jaws.

    late 10th century, Ælfric, "The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost"

  2. top

  3. captain: head, leader

  4. source, origin

Declension

Declension of heafod
SingularPlural
Nominative hēafodhēafdu
Accusative hēafodhēafdu
Genitive hēafdeshēafda
Dative hēafdehēafdum

All forms (6)

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *haubud, from Proto-Germanic *haubudą, from Proto-Indo-European *káput-. Cognate with Old Frisian hāved, Old Saxon hōƀid, Dutch hoofd, Old High German houbit, Old Norse hǫfuð, and Gothic (haubiþ). The Germanic source is related to Latin caput and Sanskrit कपाल (kapāla), though the Sanskrit cognate doesn't directly come from *káput-, but rather its first element.

Descendants

'ead, head, hed, heead

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heafod · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution