Learn how to use the verb "Head"
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| Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Know Your Verbs. |
| My name is Alisha, and in this episode, we're going to talk about the verb "head." |
| Let's get started! |
| Okay. Let's start with the basic definition of the verb "head." |
| This verb means "to move in a particular direction." |
| Examples: |
| "Let's head home." |
| "They headed for the airport." |
| Okay! Now, let's look at the conjugations for this verb. |
| Present: head, heads |
| Past: headed |
| Past Participle: headed |
| Progressive: heading |
| Now, let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb. |
| "To be in charge of a group" |
| Some examples: |
| "She heads the marketing department." |
| "He's going to head the company next year." |
| So, these example sentences show us how the verb "head" can be used to refer to the leader of (something) or the top person or the top thing in a particular department, in a group, in an organization. This refers to the person in charge, so this usually refers to a person when it's used in this way. |
| In the first example sentence, "She heads the marketing department," it means she is the person in charge of the marketing department. She's at the top level of the marketing department. |
| In the second example sentence, "He's going to head the company next year," it means he is going to be the person in charge of the company next year. |
| So, both of these show us how "head" here means like the person at the top, the person in charge. |
| The second additional meaning is "to be at the beginning, the front, or at the top of something." |
| Some examples: |
| "Please head each page with your name." |
| "A group of children headed the parade." |
| So, these example sentences show us how "head" can be used to mean positioned at the front of something, the beginning of something. |
| In the first example sentence, "Please head each page with your name," it means on a piece of paper, the beginning, like the top of each page on your paper or on your document, everything should begin with your name. That should be the first thing on each page, so please head the paper with your name. There's even a part on your paper that's referred to as the header of your paper. It's the topmost section of the paper. So, head each page with your name means begin each page with your name. |
| In the second example sentence, "A group of children headed the parade," it means a group of children were the beginning, like the front of the parade, the very first thing in the parade, it was a group of children. So we can use "head" to refer to this, the top, the beginning, the front of something. |
| The third additional meaning is "to hit something and move it forward with the head." |
| Okay, examples: |
| "The soccer player headed the ball into the goal." |
| "Heading the ball can be dangerous." |
| So, this refers to a very specific motion that we see mostly in soccer. We don't see this so much in other situations. It tends to be just sports, but we see this in soccer. So, this refers to when a ball impacts a player's head, but the player does it on purpose. The player uses his or her body to contact the ball and move it in a direction, like it's propelled in another direction. |
| So, in the first example sentence, "The player headed the ball into the goal," it means the player used his or her head to shoot the ball into the goal. |
| In the second example sentence, "Heading the ball can be dangerous," it means this action, if you don't know how to do it properly, can be dangerous to your head. |
| So, "to head" can refer to this action in sports. |
| All right! Let's move on to some variations for this verb. |
| The first variation is "to head (off) for (something)." |
| You might also hear, "to head for (something)." |
| This means, "to leave a place and move in the direction of (something)." |
| So, some examples: |
| "Let's head for that coffee shop over there." |
| "He says he's heading for Bangkok tomorrow!" |
| So, both of these example sentences show us that we're going to leave the place we're in now and move in the direction of the thing we mentioned. |
| In the first example sentence, "Let's head for that coffee shop over there," it means let's leave this location and move in the direction of that coffee shop. Let's head for that coffee shop or let's head off for that coffee shop. Sometimes, you hear "off" as well. |
| In the second example sentence, "He says he's heading for Bangkok tomorrow," it means he says, according to him, he's leaving this location and going towards Bangkok tomorrow or he's moving towards Bangkok tomorrow. So, this refers to leaving a place and going somewhere else. |
| Also, another point here, we sometimes use "head off" to mean "leave," as in, "Let's head off!" or "Let's head out!" as well. Both of those expressions mean "leave," let's just leave. |
| Okay. Let's move on to the next variation, "to head off someone" or "to head off something." |
| This expression means "to force someone or something to change direction." |
| Examples: |
| "The police headed off the thief on the highway!" |
| "Head him off in the hall so he doesn't find the surprise party we're planning!" |
| So, these examples refer to someone's direction, someone's movement being changed by an outside force. In the first example sentence, "The police headed off the thief on the highway," we could imagine, for example, the thief is driving a car along the highway and a police car or police cars come around to block. So to head off, to force the thief to change direction, maybe get off the highway, for example. So, there's some outside force causing the initial item or the initial person to change their direction, to change their movement. |
| In the second example sentence, we see the same thing, "Head him off in the hallway so he doesn't see the surprise party." So, one person's motion is like this, someone else changes their motion, changes the direction they're moving in, so we use "head someone off" or "to head someone" or "to head off something" to describe this kind of forced movement change. |
| Okay. So, those are a few new ways I hope to use the verb "head." If you have any questions or comments or you think you know another way to use "head," please let us know in the comment section of this video. |
| Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs and we'll see you again, soon. Bye-bye! |
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