Meaning

(obsolete) A stupid person; a blockhead, a dolt..

Definitions by Sense

1. (obsolete) A stupid person; a blockhead, a dolt.
2. A metal tool consisting of a long rod with a bulbous end that is made hot in a fire, then plunged into some material (such as pitch or a liquid) to melt or heat it.
3. (nautical) A post on a whaling boat used to secure the harpoon rope.
4. (Midlands, dialectal, often in the plural) A thistle-like flowering plant of the genus Centaurea, particularly the common knapweed (Centaurea nigra).
5. Used as the name of various animals with large heads.

Example Sentences

Ah, you whoreſon loggerhead, you were borne to do me ſhame.

[Y]ou in the mean time, you ſilly Logerhead, deſerve to have your Bones well-thraſh'd with a Fool's ſtaff, for thinking to ſtir up Kings and Princes to War by ſuch Childiſh Arguments.

Stalleen Station. Four new sets of hand-rails, one new foot-board, and one new sluice have been put on. A new balance beam has been put on the guard lock, and the sluices, bearing irons, and loggerheads secured. The other works are in good order.

These were the two invalids in the starboard sick-berth, whom Padeen had been sitting with. They had been sparring, in a spirit of fun, with loggerheads, those massy iron balls with long handles to be carried red-hot from the fire and plunged into buckets of tar or pitch so that the substance might be melted with no risk of flame.

Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man's hand, and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.

Loggerheads, from the resemblance of its knobbed involucres to a weapon so called, consisting of a ball of iron at the end of a stick, the knapweed, the Clobbewed of old MSS. Centaurea nigra, L.

Bolwes, loggerheads, centaurea nigra. […] Bolwes is balls, the hard round heads of the wort. Loggerheads is a name I have often heard in Oxfordshire.

Word Forms

• loggerheads

Synonyms for loggerhead

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When Should You Use Loggerhead?

Use loggerhead when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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