Word of the Day

: January 4, 2012

headlong

adverb HED-LAWNG

What It Means

1 : with the head foremost

2 : without deliberation : recklessly

3 : without pause or delay

headlong in Context

He's impulsive when it comes to romance and often rushes headlong into relationships, with little thought given to their long-term viability.

"Under the direction of Jim Petosa, the performances by these exemplary actors cut deep, at times rescuing the play from the playwright, who has a habit of veering headlong toward sentimentality or melodramatics at key moments." -- From a theater review by Don Aucoin in The Boston Globe, December 1, 2011

Did You Know?

"Headlong" appeared in Middle English as "hedlong," an alteration of the older "hedling" or "hedlynge." "Hedling" is a combination of the Middle English "hed" ("head") and "-ling," an adverb suffix which means "in such a direction or manner." Thus, "hedling" originally meant "with the head foremost" or, if you will, "in the direction of the head." By the late 1400s, influenced by its use in the compound word "endlong," the adjective "long" began to be regarded as a suffix and a variant of "-ling." It was this substitution of "-ling" with "-long" that led to the replacement of words like "sideling" and "headling" with the now more familiar "sidelong" and "headlong."