bald-headedadj.
= bald adj. bald-headed eagle, the bald eagle.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > hair > hair of head > [adjective] > having no
calloweOE
baldc1386
as bald (bare, black) as a coot1430
forehead-bald1530
pilled-pated1542
bald-pate1578
bald-headed1580
bald-pated1606
bald-head1820
baldish1833
tonsured1855
pollard1856
thin on top1869
slap-headed1994
the world > animals > birds > order Falconiformes (falcons, etc.) > family Accipitridae (hawks, etc.) > [noun] > eagles > genus Haliaetus > species leucocephalus (bald-eagle)
bald eagle1692
American eagle1782
Bird of Washington1828
bald-headed eagle1829
1580 C. Hollyband Treasurie French Tong Chauve par devant, baldheaded.
a1640 P. Massinger City-Madam (1658) iv. ii. 23 Thy proper and bald-headed Coach-man.
1829 J. MacTaggart Three Years in Canada I. 22 I had seen a couple of bald-headed eagles the day before.
1836 M. Holley Texas v. 100 The bald-headed eagle and the Mexican eagle..are very common.
1863 F. A. Kemble Jrnl. Resid. Georgian Plantation 68 A magnificent bald-headed eagle.
1935 Times Lit. Suppl. 28 Mar. 214/2 The subject..is the bald-headed eagle..the original of ‘Uncle Sam's bird’.
Phrases
colloquial phrase (originally U.S.) to go bald-headed (into, for, at), to dash or charge forward, without heeding danger or obstacles; to stake everything, to disregard consequences; to attack without care or thought; also to go it bald-headed.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > manner of action > carelessness > incautiousness > enter into incautiously or rashly [verb (transitive)]
to go it blind1840
to go bald-headed (into, for, at)1848
to walk into ——1911
1848 J. R. Lowell Biglow Papers 1st Ser. vi. 79 ‘Pious editor’ x I scent wich pays the best, an’ then Go into it baldheaded.
1867 J. R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd Ser. (new ed.) Introd. p. xiv ‘To go it bald-headed’; in great haste, as where one rushes out without his hat.
1888 Pall Mall Gaz. 22 June 4/2 The Chicago Republicans, to use an Americanism, have gone ‘baldheaded’ for Protection.
1915 W. J. Gordon Flags of World 77 Warburg, where the colonel of the Blues, the Marquis of Granby, after a high trot of five miles led them hatless in the charge, ‘going bald-headed for the enemy’, and thus originated the well-known phrase.
1927 Daily Express 28 Feb. 7/3 It is the way of a woman to go bald-headed at her objectives.
1942 R. G. Collingwood New Leviathan 116 A sensible man does not go bald-headed into a brain-twister.
1960 M. Stewart My Brother Michael xiv. 180 You went bald-headed for the poor chap.
Derivatives
bald-ˈheadedly adv. (in similar sense).
ΚΠ
1920 W. J. Locke House of Baltazar v. 61 Quong Ho..tried..zealously, then desperately, then bald-headedly, but never a wild blow could pass the easy guard of his smiling master.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1885; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1580