Tudor & Stuart · insult · noun
Jolterhead
JOLE-ter-hedpronunciation reconstructed — no period source gives it
First recorded1620 (as 'Iolter-head')
1620 (as 'Iolter-head'); 'jolthead' from the 1530s
A big, heavy head, and so a thick-headed, stupid person; a blockhead. An expanded form of the Tudor insult jolthead.
Where it was first recorded
Thomas Shelton's translation of Don Quixote, 1620 ('Iolter-head'), per the current OED; B.E.'s New Dictionary of the Canting Crew (c. 1698) is the earliest citation in Green's Dictionary of Slang.
Also spelled: jolter-head, jolter head, jolthead
In its own time
But it isn’t hanging yet for a man to keep a penn’orth of poison for his own purposes, and have it taken from him by two old crazy jolter-heads who go and act a play about it.
Today
Modern exampleWhat jolterhead parked across both spaces?
Fine to use as a comic, old-fashioned word for a blockhead.
Questions
What does jolterhead mean?
A big, heavy head, and so a thick-headed, stupid person; a blockhead. An expanded form of the Tudor insult jolthead.
When was jolterhead first used?
It is first recorded 1620 (as 'Iolter-head'); 'jolthead' from the 1530s — Thomas Shelton's translation of Don Quixote, 1620 ('Iolter-head'), per the current OED; B.E.'s New Dictionary of the Canting Crew (c. 1698) is the earliest citation in Green's Dictionary of Slang.
Can you still use jolterhead today?
Fine to use as a comic, old-fashioned word for a blockhead.
Sources
- jolterhead, n. — Green's Dictionary of Slang
- jolt-head (n.) — Online Etymology Dictionary
- A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Francis Grose, 1st edition (London: S. Hooper, 1785) — Internet Archive (scan + OCR)
- A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811 edition, 'Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'), Francis Grose — Project Gutenberg eBook #5402
- jolterhead — Merriam-Webster
- Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens — Project Gutenberg eBook #968
- jolterhead (current OED, earliest evidence) — Oxford English Dictionary
Checked 2026-09-30 · verdict: attested — found in the dictionaries and texts listed above