head off

verb

headed off; heading off; heads off

transitive verb

: to turn back or turn aside : block, prevent

head them off at the pass

attempts to head off the imminent crisis

intransitive verb

: to go to another place

See you later—I'm heading off to work.

Synonyms of head off

• prevent
• avert

Examples of head off in a Sentence

if we act quickly, we may still be able to head off disaster

Recent Examples on the Web

This makes an ideal gift for a graduate heading off to college, or a child leaving the nest to set out on their own. —Patricia Shannon, Southern Living, 1 Jan. 2026

However, around the same time, Ruby's followers began to notice a shift in her parenting and her harsher punishments — including taking away a child's bedroom, cutting the head off one of her daughter's toys and not bringing her daughter lunch at school. —Caroline Blair, PEOPLE, 31 Dec. 2025

After more than six months of study, Tianwen-2 will leave the asteroid and drop the collected sample down to Earth before heading off to investigate 311P/PanSTARRS, a complicated celestial object that’s part asteroid and part comet. —IEEE Spectrum, 31 Dec. 2025

Dazzling Venus enters the evening sky in March as Saturn heads off into the sunset. —Dean Regas, Cincinnati Enquirer, 30 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1825, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Rhymes for head off

• ashraf
• checkoff
• cutoff
• falloff
• handoff
• kickoff
• layoff
• liftoff
• markoff
• markov
• payoff
• playoff