heed

From Middle English heden, from Old English hēdan (“to heed, take care, observe, attend, guard, take charge, take possession, receive”), from Proto-West Germanic *hōdijan (“to heed, guard”), from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to heed, protect”). Cognate with West Frisian hoedje (“to heed”), Dutch hoeden (“to heed”), German hüten (“to heed”).

• IPA^(key): /hiːd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: he'd
• Rhymes: -iːd

heed (uncountable)

1. Careful attention.
   • [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:

     Then for a few minutes I did not pay much heed to what was said, being terribly straitened for room, and cramped with pain from lying so long in one place.

• (careful attention): attention, notice, observation, regard; see also Thesaurus:attention

heed (third-person singular simple present heeds, present participle heeding, simple past and past participle heeded)

1. (obsolete) To guard, protect.
2. (transitive) To mind; to regard with care; to take notice of; to attend to; to observe.
   • 1567, Ovid, translated by John Dryden, Metamorphoses, Book 1:

     With pleasure Argus the musician heeds.

   • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     "It comes back to me that I wanted to say something to the driver and that I couldn't make him heed me."

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:

     The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome.

   • 2013 September 23, Masha Gessen, “Life in a Russian Prison”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 September 2013:

     Tolokonnikova not only tried to adjust to life in the penal colony but she even tried to heed the criticism levied at her by colony representatives during a parole hearing.

   • 2020 July 29, David Clough, “AC/DC: the big switch in power supply”, in Rail, page 65:

     Barker's proposal to try out new equipment before mass introduction should also have been heeded, because traction components bought without trialling for the Glasgow and Great Eastern schemes gave trouble.

3. (intransitive, archaic) To pay attention, care.

• ehed, hede

From Old English hēafod, from Proto-West Germanic *haubud, from Proto-Germanic *haubudą (“head”).

• hed, hede, heede, hedde, had, hade, head, heid, hiede, hide, heyd, hyede, hyde, het, heved, haved, hefed, hewed, hafed, haphed, hived, hyved, hefd, hefde, hevd, efd, hevid, hevyd
• heid, heifd, heyd, heyfd (Northern)
• hevod, heveð, heaved, heaveð, eaved, heafod, heafoð, heafad, hæved, hæfed, hæfedd, hæfved, hafved, heofod, hevet, hefet, heavet, hæfet, havet, heafd, heafde, hæfd, hæfde, heifd, heyfd, hafd, hafde, hifde, hyfde (Early Middle English)

• IPA^(key): /hɛːd/, /ˈhɛvəd/, /ˈhɛːvəd/, /hɛvd/, /hɛːvd/

heed (plural heedes)

1. The head (top portion of an animal):
   • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.)‎^[1], published c. 1410, Apocalips 1:14, page 117v; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:

     ⁊ þe heed of him ⁊ his heeris weren whiyt as whiyt wolle .· ⁊ as ſnow / ⁊ þe iȝen of him as flawme of fier .·

     And his head and his hairs were white, like white wool or snow, and his eyes were like fire's flame.

   1. A headrest; a place for the head.
   2. A head-covering; headwear or hair.
   3. The head as the origin of thought; intellect or one's brain.
   4. The horns or antlers of a cervid.
2. A start or origin:
   1. The top of a waterbody or geographical feature.
   2. One of the lengthwise ends of a geographical feature.
   3. The source of a river; the headwater.
   4. The uppermost point of something; the top.
   5. The outermost extremity of something.
3. The useful end of a tool.
4. A rounded bump or boil.
5. One's ability to survive.
6. Lack of consideration; impetuousness, rashness.
7. (by extension) An individual; someone or somebody
8. (rare) A military force or troop.

• forheed
• heedles
• hoggeshed
• spere-hed

• English: head, heed, hed (obsolete), 'ead (UK, eye dialect)
  • → Japanese: ヘッド (heddo)
  • Sranan Tongo: ede
    • Aukan: ede
    • Saramaccan: hédi
• Geordie English: heed
• Scots: heid
• Yola: heade, haade, hade

• p. 1, Arthur; A Short Sketch of his Life and History in English Verse of the First Half of the Fifteenth Century, Frederick Furnivall ed. EETS. Trübner & Co.: London. 1864.
• “hēd, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-07-12.

From Old English hēafod-, from Proto-West Germanic *haubida- (“main”), derived from the noun *haubid (“head”).

heed

1. main; head, chief, principle

• English: head
• Scots: heid

heed (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of hed (“heed”)

heed

1. Alternative form of hadde: simple past/past participle of haven (“to have”)

From Middle English hede.

• IPA^(key): /hiːd/
• Homophones: heade, hea'de, heighed

heed

1. heed
   • 1867, GLOSSARY OF THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY:

     Taake heed.

     Take heed.

• taake heed

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 71