Header

How to spell header

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce header

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does header mean?

1. nounA block of text or information printed or displayed at the top of a page, document, or section.
2. nounIn football, a shot or pass made by striking the ball with the head.
3. nounA fall or dive in which a person goes headfirst.

Header in a sentence

• The company logo appears in the header of every invoice.

• He scored with a powerful header from the corner kick.

• He took a nasty header over the handlebars of his bike.

• She added the report title and date to the page header.

• The defender cleared the danger with a well-timed header.

• She slipped on the ice and went for a header onto the pavement.

Where does header come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word builds on the native English noun 'head', which descends from the Old English 'heafod', meaning the top part of the body or, more figuratively, the topmost or leading part of anything. 'Heafod' goes back to a common Germanic root that also produced Dutch 'hoofd' and German 'Haupt', all carrying the same sense of the uppermost point. The agent suffix '-er', also of Germanic origin, was attached to mark a thing that sits at, or acts upon, the head; the formation 'header' is a relatively modern English coinage rather than a borrowing. Its many specialised meanings, the top line of a page, a forward dive, and a struck blow with the head in football, all radiate logically from that single idea of the head or top. The spelling is straightforward once you remember it is simply 'head' plus '-er', with no doubling and no hidden letters.

How the word is built

• head (top, leading part)
• -er (noun suffix denoting an agent or thing that performs an action)