headquarters

Etymology

It is formed from English head + quarter,^[2][3][4][5] at first as headquarter and soon also with the plural quarters.^[2][3] Etymonline takes the first element as the adjective head, chief.^[6] The OED compares Dutch hoofdkwartier (1688 or earlier), German Hauptquartier (1588 or earlier) and Swedish huvudkvarter (1658).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The premises of a military commander and his staff: 1622, in the form headquarter, in a news periodical.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the same year.^[7] Etymonline dates the word to the 1640s, as the residence of a military commander,^[6] the Collegiate to 1647,^[8] and the Shorter Oxford to the mid 17th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a military term, built on the sense of quarters as a place of lodging.^[2][3] The plural form first referred to more than one location (1639), and by 1644 to a single one, with either a singular or a plural verb.^[2] It was soon applied outside the army to any principal place of residence, meeting or business: the singular form from 1645, the plural from 1647, in T. Fuller's Good Thoughts in Worse Times.^[2] The Shorter Oxford dates this general use to the late 18th century only.^[3] Johnson (1755) knew it as a place of general rendezvous or lodging for soldiers, and quoted Collier's figure of the brain as the headquarters of the spirits; in 1773 he added that head and quarters should properly stand apart.^[4] From 1812 the word could also mean the people based there, commanders or managers as a body.^[2] The verb headquarter followed in 1838, a back-formation according to Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com,^[7][5] and a conversion of the noun according to the OED.^[2] In the managerial sense, of an organization's administrative centre, the word is now the first meaning in the Concise Oxford.^[9]

Timeline

• 1622 – headquarter, the premises of a military commander.^[2][7]
• 1639 – headquarters, with plural agreement, of more than one such establishment.^[2]
• 1644 – headquarters of a single establishment, with plural or singular agreement.^[2]
• 1645 – headquarter in the general sense of a principal place of residence, meeting or business.^[2]
• 1647 – headquarters in the same general sense.^[2]
• 1812 – the people who work at headquarters; commanders or managers collectively.^[2]
• 1867 – in the Sailor's Word-Book, the vessel carrying the staff of an expedition (now obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The main office or centre from which an organization or activity is run: The insurer moved its headquarters to the waterfront.^{[10][7][2][11]}
2. The offices or premises of a military commander, from which orders are issued.^[7][2][11]
3. The commander and staff of a military unit, or more generally the people who work at such a centre: Headquarters wants a report by noon.^[10][7][2]

Word family

• subheadquarters
• general headquarters

Related words

• headquarter
• head
• quarter

Usage notes

The noun takes a singular or a plural verb; the American Heritage Dictionary finds the plural more common.^[11][9] The singular form headquarter is now rare, and chiefly South Asian.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt