Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a fool.

[1751		W. Kenrick Falstaff’s Wedding (1766) III vi: fal.: Thou pumpion-headed rascal, stay, or — bar.: Give me good words, then, Sir John. Why pumpkin-head, pray now? fal.: Hast thou never seen a pumpion, [...] set over a candle’s-end, on a gate-post, to frighten ale-wives from gossiping by owl-light? That is a type of thee – that is thy emblem: thy head being hollow, full of light, and easily broken].
1809		‘Dietrich Knickerbocker’ Hist. N.Y. in Irving Works (1864) 291: Beside each pumpkin-head peered the end of a rusty musket .
1829		Examiner (London) 1 Mar. 1/2: They speak through their cousins, the pumpkin-heads in both Houses.
1843		Gleaner (Manchester, NH) 27 May n.p.: Modern chronicles. The fulsome effusions of the pumpkin heads of pumpkinville.
1850		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 7 Sept. n.p.: [S]o that the pumpkin head can understand who it is!
1876		H.E. Scudder Dwellers in Five-Sisters Court 87: ‘Pumpkin head!’ said the Doctor, more vigorously than politely .
1882		Bristol Magpie 27 July 6/2: Mr De Foppington [...] heard [...] from some of the low ruffians [...] the phrase ‘pumpkin head’.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 151: Ef we hadn’ [...] ben sich punkin-heads, as de sayin’ is, we’d a seed de raf’.
1896		Worcs Chron. 6 June 6/6: That thar pumpkin-head’s bin telling a lot of lies.
1901		T. Hammond On Board a Whaler 111: Why, doggone y’r punkin head, lice is lice.
1903		Essex Newsman 12 Sept. 1/5: He is a fat-headed — , and a pumpkin-head — , and he don’t know horse from a cow.
1905		N.Y. Tribune 4 June 29/1: He allowed that it would remind me that I was a punkin-head.
1918		J.C. Lincoln Shavings 232: ‘Can’t make a man out of a punkinhead,’ he asserted.
1929		A. Perkins ‘Maine Dialect’ AS V:2 119: A stupid individual was a ‘mutton head,’ ‘punkin head,’ ‘lunk head,’ or ‘dumber than a stump.’.
1938		R. Heffner ‘“Maine Dialect” in Ohio’ AS XIII:1 74: So and so is [...] a mutton head, a punkin head, a lunk head.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 14: Milton’s a pumpkin-head.

2. (also pumpkin pate) a person with an abnormally large head.

1838		J.C. Neal Charcoal Sketches (1865) 19: A little head waggles home with an immense castor, while a pumpkin pate sallies forth surmounted by a thimble.
1956		I. Shulman Good Deeds Must Be Punished 102: What’s eating you, baby-face? [...] What’s eating your little pumpkin head?
1971		T.C. Bambara ‘Raymond’s Run’ in Gorilla, My Love (1972) 25: Someone’s liable to [...] ask him where he got that great big pumpkin head.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1991		R.G. Barratt ‘Kakadu’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Good luck to old pumpkin head.
1998		J. Lansdale Rumble Tumble 142: [to a midget] I’m just dyin’ to hit you again on the other side of your little punkin’ head.

3. as a term of address.

2001

(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 111: Shoot, punkinhead, my Uncle Ben was Bad’s friend too.

4. see pumpkin n. (1b)