lose one's head
/luːz wʌnz hɛd/
"lose-one-s-head" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lose one's head” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To be killed, usually in a gruesome manner.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lose-one-s-head · lose one's head · English
lose one's head · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lose one's head |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /luːz wʌnz hɛd/ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lose one's head” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lose one's head is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /luːz wʌnz hɛd/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for lose one's head in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is lose one's head, spelled L-O-S-E- -O-N-E-'-S- -H-E-A-D.
Definition
- 1To be killed, usually in a gruesome manner.
- 2To suffer decapitation.
- 3To behave irrationally or to lose one's self-control, especially in a distressing situation or as a result of falling in love.
- 4To be dismissed from a job.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lose one's head appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mrs. Ambient's grief was frantic; she lost her head and said strange things.
Losing his head entirely, the young collier raved like a madman, what with pain and fear of hospital.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
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.