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Tudor & Stuart · insult · noun

Loggerhead

LOG-er-hed /ˈlɒɡəhɛd/pronunciation given by a dictionary

First recorded1595

A thick-headed, stupid person; a blockhead. Probably from dialect 'logger', a heavy block of wood, plus 'head'. Later also a large head, an iron tool, and (from the 1650s) a turtle; 'at loggerheads' (quarrelling) dates from the 1670s.

Where it was first recorded

An Enquiry … Tripe-wife (1595), per the current OED; Shakespeare uses it in Love's Labour's Lost, written c. 1594–95 (the first edition of the OED and Merriam-Webster gave 1588, from an older dating of the play)

Also spelled: logger-head, logerhead

In its own time

Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were born to do me shame.
William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV scene iii, c. 1595 · read it

Today

Modern exampleSome loggerhead has put the recycling in the compost bin again.

Fine to use as a mild insult; most people now know it from the turtle or the phrase 'at loggerheads'.

Questions

What does loggerhead mean?

A thick-headed, stupid person; a blockhead. Probably from dialect 'logger', a heavy block of wood, plus 'head'. Later also a large head, an iron tool, and (from the 1650s) a turtle; 'at loggerheads' (quarrelling) dates from the 1670s.

When was loggerhead first used?

It is first recorded 1595 — An Enquiry … Tripe-wife (1595), per the current OED; Shakespeare uses it in Love's Labour's Lost, written c. 1594–95 (the first edition of the OED and Merriam-Webster gave 1588, from an older dating of the play).

Can you still use loggerhead today?

Fine to use as a mild insult; most people now know it from the turtle or the phrase 'at loggerheads'.

Sources

  1. Loggerhead — Murray's New English Dictionary (OED1), via WEHD
  2. loggerhead — Online Etymology Dictionary
  3. loggerhead — Merriam-Webster
  4. Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811 ed.) — Francis Grose (Project Gutenberg #5402)
  5. loggerhead — Wiktionary
  6. Love's Labour's Lost — The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (MIT)
  7. loggerhead (current OED, earliest evidence) — Oxford English Dictionary

Checked 2026-09-30 · verdict: attested — found in the dictionaries and texts listed above

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