head, intellect, person, a favourite word with Sir T. Browne, ‘Every Age has its Lucian, whereof common Heads must not hear’, Rel. Med. (ed. Greenhill, 36).
headless hood. In Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 96, we find: ‘So vainely t’aduance thy headless hood.’ Here hood, i.e. state, condition, is the usual suffix -hood, used as if it could be detached. ‘Explained in the Globe ed., followed by recent Dicts., as = heedlesshood’, but Spenser elsewhere always distinguishes between headless and heedless, NED.
heal, to cover; ‘Heal, to cover, to heal a house’, ‘to heal the fire’, ‘to heal a person in bed’, Ray, S. and E. Country Words (1674). See EDD. (s.v. Heal, vb.2). ME. helen, to hide, conceal (Chaucer, C. T. B. 2279). OE. helian, to hide. See [unhele].
heale, health. Udall, Roister Doister, iii. 3 (ed. Arber, 46); well-being, prosperity, Skelton, Why Come ye nat to Courte, 768. In prov. use in Scotland and Ireland, see EDD. (s.v. Heal, sb.1). ME. hele, health, recovery, safety (Wars Alex., see Gloss. Index). OE. hǣlo.
hear ill, to be ill spoken of. B. Jonson, Catiline, iv. 6 (end); Dedication of Volpone. A Greek idiom, cp. κακῶς ἀκούειν, to be ill spoken of.
heardgroom, herdgroom, a shepherd-lad. Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 35. Copied from Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 1225 (‘Thise litel herdegromes’).
hearse, a structure of wood used in noble funerals, decorated with banners, heraldic devices, and lighted candles, on which it was customary for friends to pin short poems or epitaphs; ‘Underneath this sable hearse’, B. Jonson, Epit. on the Countess of Pembroke; Middleton, Women beware, iii. 2 (Livia); a coffin on a bier, Richard III, i. 2. 2. See Dict.
heart at grass: phr. to take heart at grasse; ‘Rise, therefore, Euphues, and take heart at grasse, younger thou shalt never bee, plucke up thy stomacke’, Lyly, Euphues (Nares); Tarlton’s Newes out of Purgatorie, 24. See Nares (s.v. Heart of grace).
heart of grace: phr. to take heart of grace; ‘His absence gave him so much heart of grace’, Harington, Ariosto, xxii. 37; ‘Take heart of grace, man’, Ordinary (Nares). See Nares (s.v. Grace, 3).
heart-breaker, a lovelock, a curl; jocosely. Butler, Hudibras, pt. i, c. 1, 253.