Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. used in a variety of combs. in which -head is linked to a n. to create a term with a neg. personal meaning, often fool or idiot; the implication is that the head in question is shaped like or otherwise resembles the n.; also less frequently used with adj., e.g. airhead n. (1); blockhead n.¹ ; bonehead n.¹ (1); cabbage-head n. (1); dickhead n.; egghead n.¹ ; meathead n.; pinhead n. (2); pointy-head n. (1); shithead n. (1)

1867		G.W. Harris Sut Lovingood’s Yarns 134: The devil yu say, hon’ey-head! [...] Yu wait ontil yu sprouts tuther ho’n, afore yu venters tu ’splain mix’d questions.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 593: yaphead, n. A yap. An egotistic, yet ignorant fellow.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 64: And they gave three groans for Baldyhead Dolan.
1932		V.F. Nelson Prison Days and Nights 33: They don’t seem able to tell a good guy from a dummy head.
1943		J. Binning Target Area 47: There is one gunner whose thinking apparatus begins slowly, and Shorty calls him ‘Ox-head.’ All the Japanese are ‘bomb-heads,’ and anyone who changes his mind is a ‘willow-head’.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 355: Listen ta these ratheads bark!
1947–53		W. Guthrie Seeds of Man (1995) 381: ‘Ole Buggerhead.’ Eddie nodded. ‘Niggerhead, we call him,’ Sam said.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 128: He calls people desert-heads.
1962		K. Waterhouse There is a Happy Land (1964) 18: Don’t shout with your arm, dafthead.
1963		C. Wood ‘Prisoner and Escort’ in Cockade (1965) I iii: I thought all of us were funny with what we were. Rank on rank of wet khaki papheads.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 84: ‘Softhead! Softhead!’ he screamed in his face.
1968		in L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation xxxv: Rock is a way of life [...] and can’t be stopped, retarded, put down, muted, modified or successfully controlled by typeheads.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 328: The smart heads said it had been because a bunch of gunsels had fallen out over a big heroin deal.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 58: What an old scrubber-slag-head.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 33: He’s a terrible hothead. I seen him years ago split Spruille’s skull apart with a cue stick.
1996		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 3: fruit head – someone who acts silly, stupid.
2000		Guardian Rev. 7 Jan. 14: We’re total madheads.
2001		A.Sillitoe Birthday 168: No one but a wool-head would do otherwise.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 415: Dunno why you’d want to talk to that meringue-head.
2007		D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 169: Her mother was just a stress-head and impossible to live with.

2. (US) used in a variety of derog. combs. to mean a person of a specific (and alien) ethnic origin, e.g. handkerchief-head n.² ; pope-head under pope n.; rag-head n.

1982		P. Theroux London Embassy 70: Hussein – that coloured boy in Form Three they call ‘turd-head’.
1984		Elting, Cragg & Deal Dict. of Soldier Talk 352: Boxhead (1920–30 Navy) [...] A Swede or Norwegian.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 177: Nodding to the Rastahead at the far end .

3. used in var. combs. to mean a fan or devotee of a particular thing, e.g. a certain type of music, e.g. chiphead n.; hog-head under hog n.; metalhead n.; petrol-head n.

1959		J. Blake letter 23 Sept. in Joint (1972) 145: He was a fanatical Bach-head.
1960		‘Lord Buckley’ Hiparama of the Classics 7: The Reed Heads, the Lute Heads, and the Flute Heads, and Every Cat that could knock a Rock Together.
1970		Listener 22 Oct. 560: What is it that kept these young film-heads away?
1974		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 4: motor head – someone who is over-enthusiastic about cars.
1982		P. Theroux London Embassy 137: He’s a jazzhead – plays trumpet around town in clubs.
1985		Tracks (Aus.) May 5: When all you surf heads come up here no one tells you to piss off even when you steal our plantations, women and stuff up the bush! [Moore (1993) ].
1988		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 4: frathead – stereotypic fraternity member.
1991		R. Doyle Van (1998) 369: She was a bit of a Curehead but not that bad: she had a mind of her own [...] She was into the Cure as well but not only the Cure. [Ibid.] 498: They were real bingo heads alright.
1993		A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 114: He had become a real fashion head. He’d blown at least a grand on clothes already.
1998		Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 16: Playing to huge crowds of non hip-hop heads.
1999		(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 93: The club is all right if you are a soul-head. [Ibid.] 140: Reggae-heads jostling and pushing to get aboard.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 98: This bloke Kenny’s a bit of a rugby-head.
2001		Source Aug. 32: The flick belongs in any self-respecting movie-head’s library.
2007		(ref. to 1940s) B. Coleman Check the Technique 171: ‘“Last of the Spiddyocks” [a song] [...] That was a term from when my dad was growing up, and it meant a real jazzhead type of person. You dressed a certain way and listened to a certain kind of music. It was just a type of socialite when he was young’.
2009		Observer Mag. 4 Jan. 24: He approached the Niketown store [...] a crowd of young men had collected on the sidewalk. ‘Sneakerheads,’ as Lee called them.

4. used in var. combs. meaning a habitual user of a drug or a particular drink, e.g. a-head n.; hophead n.¹ ; jickhead n.; pothead n.²

1925		Writer’s Monthly June 486: Jake-Head — A drinker of Jamaica ginger [HDAS].
1936		(ref. to 1918) L. Duncan Over the Wall 21: I saw and became familiar with [...] paragoric hounds, laudanum fiends, and last but not least, the veronal heads.
1938		N.Y. Amsterdam News 2 Apr. 17: The thousands of lushheads and ‘tea’ worms that are being hatched daily [...] are a peril.
1939		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 29 July 16: The clumsy and somewhat lowlife terms for drunkards such as [...] ‘whiskey-head,’ ‘booze hound,’ etc.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 325: You’re drunk like a sakihead missionary.
1957		F. Kohner Gidget (2001) 5: I tried to conjure up the faces and voices of the ‘Go-Heads of Malibu’.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 455: Whiskey got some of them. Whiskey heads are all dead!
1960		C. Himes Big Gold Dream 65: She’s just a cook and a liquor-head to boot.
1961		F. Kohner Gidget Goes Hawaiian 2: It bugs me no end that he can’t understand what a real sterling group the Go-Heads of Malibu are.
1963		J. Blake letter 5 May in Joint (1972) 208: The ampule-heads sound frenetic but interesting.
1966		F. Elli Riot (1967) 30: C’mon, you Benny-heads.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 119: He coulda been the best damn lawyer in Columbia County sure’s hell better’n that Drambuie-head D.A.!
1989		D. Waters Heathers [film script] Betty Finn was a true friend, and I sold her out for a bunch of Swatch-dogs and Diet Coke-heads.
1995		I. Rankin Let It Bleed 58: It’s not some brew-head from Gorgie.
1998		L. Stringer Grand Central Winter (1999) 28: The weathered grapehead teetering on his feet at the end of the line.
2000		F. Mac Anna Cartoon City 48: E-heads break wind like donkeys because the drug relaxes muscles in their lower bodies.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Reality 30 Apr. 16: I didn’t want my mom to think of me as a drug-head.
2000		Observer Sport 12 Mar. 9: Genial fat-boy cider-head from the West Country.
2003		Indep. Rev. 7 Mar. 4: Ecstasy is out, in favour of a horse tranquilliser that makes you feel, to quote one K-head I spoke to, ‘just like you’re dead’.
2004		(con. 1980s) N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 283: Most of the people he knew I ran with on the out were big puff-heads.