behead

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English beheden, also beheveden,^[2][3] inherited from Old English behēafdian,^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} formed from be-, here in a privative sense,^[4][5][10] and hēafod (“head”),^[4][5][6][7] the source of head,^[9] from Proto-Indo-European *kaput- (“head”).^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged analyses it instead with Old English hēafdian (“to behead”).^[2] Compare Middle High German behoubeten, with the same sense,^[4][11] and German enthaupten and Dutch onthoofden, which use another prefix.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To kill by cutting off the head: in the Old English West Saxon Gospels, where He beheáfdode Iohannem renders the Latin decollavit Iohannem.^[8][4] Old English uses include a line on dreams, in which to see oneself beheaded foretells gain.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed the same since Old English.^[4][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to deprive of the head; to kill by cutting off the head", quoting Shakespeare and Addison on Mary, Queen of Scots.^[13] From 1579 it is also used, rarely, of removing the top or front part of things,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged records it for a tree and for a stream that loses its headwaters to another drainage system.^[2]

Timeline

• Old English – to kill by cutting off the head.^[4][8][12]
• 1579 – of things, to take off the top or foremost part.^[4][12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut off the head of; to decapitate: The rebel leader was beheaded in the market square.^[11][2][4]
2. (rare) To cut off the top part of something.^[4][14][2]
3. To divert the headwaters of a stream into another drainage system.^[2]

Word family

• beheadal
• beheader

Related words

• head

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press