head and shoulders

head and shoulders

English

Pronunciation

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Adverb

head and shoulders (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) To a considerable degree.

   She was head and shoulders better than any of her rivals.

   He was head and shoulders above the others in the law firm.

   • 1941 March, Mercury, “American Express Train Services in 1940”, in Railway Magazine, page 99:

     Both the New York Central and Pennsylvania systems, which in speed tower head-and-shoulders over other American lines, have added substantially to their high speed mileage between 1939 and 1940, [...].

2. By force; violently.

   to drag somebody head and shoulders

   • 1711, Henry Felton, Dissertation on Reading the Classics

     They bring in every figure and scheme of speech, head and shoulders.

References

• “head and shoulders above”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.