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Headpiece   Listen
noun
Headpiece  n.  
1.
Head. "In his headpiece he felt a sore pain."
2.
A cap of defense; especially, an open one, as distinguished from the closed helmet of the Middle Ages.
3.
Understanding; mental faculty. "Eumenes had the best headpiece of all Alexander's captains."
4.
An engraved ornament at the head of a chapter, or of a page.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Headpiece" Quotes from Famous Books



... a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... was a respectable place in Fung-Tching's time where you could be comfortable, and not at all like the chandoo-khanas where the niggers go. No; it was clean and quiet, and not crowded. Of course, there were others beside us ten and the man; but we always had a mat apiece, with a wadded woolen headpiece, all covered with black and red dragons and things; just like the coffin ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... diminutive of "basin"), a form of helmet or headpiece. The original small basinet was a light open cap, with a peaked crown. This was used alternately to, and even in conjunction with, the large heavy heaume. But in the latter half of the 13th century the basinet was developed into a complete war head-dress and replaced ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... winter, fall; for he, Prompt hand and headpiece clever, Has woven a winter robe, And made of earth and sea His overcoat for ever, And wears the ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman

... is easier to bring about a revolution than to invent a graceful hat. Courage in Paris recoils before the thought of appearing in a round felt; and for lack of one day's daring, men stick all their lives to this ridiculous headpiece. And yet Frenchmen ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... railway porters at Bournemouth (which was a favourite station of the doctor's) marked the old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence of personal taste, a vizarded forage cap; from this form of headpiece, since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and weathered a bora in the Adriatic, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... don't somebody else might," said Tom, "and then Cloom'd be mother's and ours. Eh, I wish I was the eldest; I'm the only one with a headpiece ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... colonel's hands were scarce larger than Miss Fanshawe's own, and suggested that this circumstance might be convenient, as he could wear her gloves at a pinch. On his dear curls, I told her I doated: and as to his low, Grecian brow, and exquisite classic headpiece, I confessed I had no language to do ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... me you are to be a lawyer. Mr. O'Malley," said he; "and if so, I must advise you to take better care of your headpiece." ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... played a waiting game with her finger on the pulse of Peter's prospects? For there was talk of a partnership with the Wetmores. Or a fool, perhaps, for all her sonneting, for there are men who relish a weak headpiece as the chiefest ornament of women, especially when its indeterminate vagaries boast an escape-valve remotely connected with the fine arts. Or a devil-woman, perhaps—an upright wanton who could think no wrong from very poverty of temperament, yet kept him dangling. The possibility ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... a little more consideration and some elementary knowledge of farriery would have been of more service to the ill-used beasts round Naples than the excellent Pliny's highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery of charms to intercept the jettatura, there is the light brass headpiece engraved with sacred figures, so that any evil glance must be fully absorbed, baffled or exhausted, before it can fix itself upon the animal. In addition however to this shining mass of headgear, the horse carries on his back one of those curious high pommels that are peculiar to Southern Italy and ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... straw. He was fully dressed even to his great riding-boots, and from the loose manner in which his back-and-breast hung now upon him, it would seem as if he had been making shift to divest himself of his armour, but had lacked the strength to complete the task. Beside him lay a feathered headpiece and a sword attached to a richly broidered baldrick. All about him the straw was clotted with brown, viscous patches of blood. The doublet which had been of sky-blue velvet was all sodden and stained, and inspection showed ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... spearhead seize, And the bold sea-rover slay, Him whose blows on headpiece ring, Heaper up of piles of dead. Then on Endil's courser (4) bounding, O'er the sea-depths I will ride, While the wretch who spells abuseth, Life shall lose in Sigar's ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... and was aware of a stunted peasant who bore upon his rounded back an enormous bundle very much larger than himself. Behind him walked a burly broad-shouldered archer, whose stained jerkin and battered headpiece gave token of long and hard service. His bow was slung over his shoulder, and his arms were round the waists of two buxom Frenchwomen, who tripped along beside him with much laughter and many ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... He took it, and presently she heard it scraping on the pipe in search of the obstruction. "Cleared it, by Jingo! and that's famous." He lowered himself upon the flat of his broad soles. "You ought to ha' been a plumber's wife. My! if I had a headpiece like that to think for ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... but he was too fearless by nature to pay much heed to the warning; he felt himself more than a match for that bowed-down old man. Giving Constanza into Raymond's charge, he stepped boldly up to the dais, and doffing his headpiece, addressed himself to his adversary in firm ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... schoolfellow of Scott's[107] asked him across the table if he had any faith in the antique busts of Homer. "No, truly," he answered, smiling, "for if there had been either limners or stuccoyers worth their salt in those days, the owner of such a headpiece would never have had to trail the poke. They would have alimented the honest man decently ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... doubt of that. No; that's your friends. There's been blows, too, and I reckon your friends has had the best of it; and here they are ashore in the old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was the man to have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his match were never seen. He were afraid of none, not he; on'y Silver—Silver was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the objects of their avarice and hatred, preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these same arts will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; the headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it trembling. What irony Webster has condensed ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... it," said she generously; "take that scapegoat Jerry-Jo McAlpin with you and have it out with him about being a young beast and worrying the heart out of old Jerry, who means well but ain't got no kind of a headpiece. Take your ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... ranking officers of the organization, and marched many a weary mile. So great was his dislike for a silk hat even then that he invariably carried a cap in his pocket and the moment the parade was over the abhorred headpiece ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... a good, sound constitution, a good stomach, a good heart and good limbs, and a pretty good headpiece, is rich. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... form; he was guided by it in all his speculations, and paid little heed to the various rumours always afloat regarding private trials. Public form he admitted did not always come out right, but if a man had a headpiece and could remember all the running, public form was good enough to follow. Racing with Journeyman was a question of calculation, and great therefore was his contempt for the weak and smiling Ketley, whom he went for on all ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... any of ye,' Sir Jacob cried, 'for appearing in arms against any man who bears the name of Stuart. Had I not a mission here which cannot be neglected, I might myself be tempted to hie westward with ye, and put these grey hairs of mine once more into the rough clasp of a steel headpiece. For where now is the noble castle of Snellaby, and where those glades and woods amidst which the Clancings have grown up, and lived and died, ere ever Norman William set his foot on English soil? A man of trade—a man who, by the sweat of his half-starved workers, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... dropped in and found Finch alone. He began to anoint my headpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted dust and dirt like ...
— Options • O. Henry

... the way it sounds. Say, they ought to be a law about these amatoors cluttering up the air this way. Sometimes I got to pick my own dope out of a dozen or fifteen messages all ticking away in my headpiece ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White

... the first enclosure is that of James II. It will be seen that it only consists of a headpiece, breast and back plates, and a long gauntlet to protect the bridle arm. All the pieces bear the King's initials, and the face guard is pierced with the design of the Royal Arms. The next equestrian figure is a gilt suit of Charles I (XIX), said to have been given to him by the City of London. ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie

... headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpiece of a telephone. This was connected with a wire which, when not in use, could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. Near the ears, similarly connected with wires, ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss

... a study; a pained, deprecating expression passed over it as he uncovered his head, his glazed headpiece glistening in ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith

... mine, and you won't be delayed looking for them," so Ned donned Tom's garment and headpiece, ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... defiance through the barred aventaile of his headpiece. It was a sight that might have roused the spirit of old Froissart, or the ghost of Hotspur. The Knight had, certainly, no easy task to perform; the weight of armour was rather heavier than the usual trappings of a modern dandy, and the heat of the sun appeared to be baking the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... steep dark staircase, and Marion opened a low thatched door in which the light, obscured by drawn chintz curtains, fell on cream walls and a bed, with its high headpiece made of fine wood painted green, and a great press made of the same. "There's a step down," she said, "and the floor rakes, but I'm fond of the room. I slept here when I was a girl; but all the things are new—I got them down from London; and I had the walls done. So you have a fresh start." ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... him call the basin a headpiece he was unable to restrain his laughter, but remembering his master's wrath he checked himself in the midst ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... churl!" said Gwenwyn, swinging around his head a mace of prodigious weight, and already clottered with blood, "thy iron headpiece shall ill protect thy lying tongue, with which I will this day feed ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... suspended round his neck, and his barred helmet of steel, over which he had a hood and collar of mail, which was drawn around the warrior's shoulders and throat, and filled up the vacancy between the hauberk and the headpiece. His lower limbs were sheathed, like his body, in flexible mail, securing the legs and thighs, while the feet rested in plated shoes, which corresponded with the gauntlets. A long, broad, straight-shaped, double-edged falchion, with a handle formed like a cross, corresponded ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... you have more honor, having this— Men's hearts and loves and the sweet spoil of souls Given you like simple gold to bind your hair? Say you were king of thews, not queen of souls, An iron headpiece hammered to a head, ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Bruce arrived at the temple. Day after day he had hung to the trail, picking it up here and losing it there. He found Rajah, the elephant, the howdah gone, and only the ornamental headpiece discovered to Bruce that he had found his rogue. Rajah was docile enough; he had been domesticated so long that his freedom rather ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... then hesitated at the edge of the deck, looking down. A bubble of foggy white light was rising slowly through the water of the hold, and in a moment the headpiece of one of the other suits broke the oily surface, stayed there, bobbing gently about. Dasinger climbed down, brought Liu Taunus's body back up to the lock compartment, and recovered the Mooncat's ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... guided to the Bazaar, and introduced to several hotels by some five score natives, whose numbers increased as we proceeded, and were augmented by numerous sellers of sun toppee, pugarees, etc. We were speedily provided each with a tropical headpiece with a long tail of white muslin therefrom which ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... the person who wore it—man, as well as elf—invisible to mortal eyes. That the white hunter might use his eyes as well as ears, and thus stand on equal terms in the interview, which had opened at a disadvantage to him, the elf had laid aside his magic headpiece, and now stood as plainly revealed to bodily vision as the brightest ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... length emerged from the sanctuary in his everyday costume of black cassock and tall cylindrical headpiece; when Iskender knelt before him with choice blessings, and implored his aid. In the shadow, with eyes yet dazzled from the radiance of the tapers he had just extinguished, Mitri could not make out who it was, but holding ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... was cured again." Trincavellius consil. 13. lib. 1. hath an example of a melancholy man so caused by overmuch continuance in the sun, frequent use of venery, and immoderate exercise: and in his cons. 49. lib. 3. from a [2443]headpiece overheated, which caused head-melancholy. Prosper Calenus brings in Cardinal Caesius for a pattern of such as are so melancholy by long ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... left wing, and stretched out its leg, and ran back again into the coop, without eating anything. This put Tiberius in mind of another ill omen which had formerly happened to him. He had a very costly headpiece, which he made use of when he engaged in any battle, and into this piece of armor two serpents crawled, laid eggs, and brought forth young ones. The remembrance of which made Tiberius more concerned now, than otherwise he would have been. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... about sunset. Fish in abundance had been caught, and a picnic supper provided to be eaten on the rocks when the proper time arrived. They found Sammy, in a clean blue shirt and a hat less like a Feejee headpiece, willing to do the honors of the Island, beaming like a freckled young merman as he paddled out to pull ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... powerfully built man of medium height, whose youthful face and uprightness of carriage assorted ill with the grey of his hair, pronouncing that greyness premature. He seemed all clad in leather, for where his jerkin stopped his boots began. A cuirass and feathered headpiece lay in a corner, whilst on the table Kenneth espied a broad-brimmed hat, a huge sword, and a ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... went passing From one to another: 260 "Yes, if there's no big snake There cannot be small ones!" And Klimka is swearing Again at the carter: "You ignorant fool!" They're ready to grapple! The deacon is sobbing And kissing his Grisha: "Just see what a headpiece The Lord is creating! 270 No wonder he longs For the college in Moscow!" Old Vlass, too, is patting His shoulder and saying, "May God send thee silver And gold, and a healthy And ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... Sir Daniel sat in the inn room, close by the fireside, for it was cold at that hour among the fens of Kettley. By his elbow stood a pottle of spiced ale. He had taken off his visored headpiece, and sat with his bald head and thin dark visage resting on one hand, wrapped warmly in a sanguine-coloured cloak. At the lower end of the room about a dozen of his men stood sentry over the door or lay asleep on benches; and, somewhat nearer ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson



Words linked to "Headpiece" :   band, helmet, headstall



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