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headword.

A word (or compound term) used as the title of a list entry or section, particularly in a dictionary, encyclopedia, or thesaurus.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈhɛdwɜːd/Received-Pronunciation/ˈhɛdwɝd/General-American
  1. A word (or compound term) used as the title of a list entry or section, particularly in a dictionary, encyclopedia, or thesaurus.

  2. The head of a phrase.

    In "a very discerning car shopper", "shopper" is the headword.
Where this word comes from

From head + word. Compare West Frisian haadwurd (“noun, substantive, headword”), Dutch hoofdwoord (“headword”), German Hauptwort (“noun, substantive, headword”), Swedish huvudord (“headword, keyword”).

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headword studioheadword workshello, headword

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.