Obs. Also 6 vellet head, 7 velvet-head. [f. VELVET sb. 2.]
1. The head of a deer while the horns are still covered with velvet. Also transf. of a kid (quot. 1579).
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 244. His heade is called then a veluet heade.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., May, 185. His Vellet head began to shoote out, And his wrethed hornes gan newly sprout.
1607. Topsell, Hist. Four-f. Beasts, 124. Hornes … couered with a rough skinne, which the hunters for honours sake call a Veluet head.
1626. Breton, Fantasticks, Wks. (Grosart), II. 12/1. The veluet heads of the Forrests fall at the loose of the Crosse-bow.
1674. N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat. (1677), 65. If you geld him when he hath a Velvet-head, it will ever be so, without fraying or burnishing.
2. Applied contemptuously to a person.
1630. B. Jonson, New Inn, II. ii. What says old velvet-head?
Hence † Velvet-headed a. In quots. fig. Obs.
1647. N. Bacon, Disc. Govt. Eng., vi. 23. Roman Prelacy in these younger times was but Velvet-headed.
1650. B., Discolliminium, 41. You will expose your Flocks to all the new-fangled Errours … that bud so fast, out of the Brow-antlers of our velvet-headed Brockets.
1678. Marvell, Growth Popery, 6. He lays the same claim still,… and though Velvet-headed hath the more itch to be pushing.
