head man

noun

"head-man" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“head man” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The person in charge of an organization, clan, tribe, or other group.

Corpus desk

Index EN-head-man · head man · English

head man · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for head man
PropertyValue
Headwordhead man
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “head man” in English

head manranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

head man is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No generated misspelling entries exist for head man in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English heed man, from Old English hēafodmann (“leader; captain, head of a group”), from Proto-West Germanic *haubidamann, equivalent to head + man. Cognate with Dutch hoofdman (“chief; chieftain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”), Swedish huvudman… The correct English form is head man, spelled H-E-A-D- -M-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    The person in charge of an organization, clan, tribe, or other group.
  2. 2
    The leader of a village.

Etymology

From Middle English heed man, from Old English hēafodmann (“leader; captain, head of a group”), from Proto-West Germanic *haubidamann, equivalent to head + man. Cognate with Dutch hoofdman (“chief; chieftain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”), Swedish huvudman (“chief; principal; leader”). Compare also English headsman. Doublet of hetman.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "head man"?
"head man" is spelled H-E-A-D- -M-A-N.
What does "head man" mean?
As a noun, "head man" means: The person in charge of an organization, clan, tribe, or other group.
What is the origin of the word "head man"?
From Middle English heed man, from Old English hēafodmann (“leader; captain, head of a group”), from Proto-West Germanic *haubidamann, equivalent to head + man. Cognate with Dutch hoofdman (“chief; chieftain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”), Swedis... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list