a.

1

  1.  Of an animal: Having the head (wholly or partly) white; having white hair, plumage, etc., on the head.

2

  (Freq. in specific designations of various birds.)

3

1525.  in Test. Ebor. (Surtees), VI. 11. On whie whiteheded.

4

1547.  Knaresb. Wills (Surtees), I. 53. One whittheaded calff.

5

1785.  Pennant, Arctic Zool., II. 196.

6

1872.  Coues, Key N. Amer. Birds, 192. White-headed Woodpecker.

7

  2.  Of a person: White-haired, esp. from age; also, having very light or fair hair, flaxen-haired.

8

1815.  Scott, Guy M., i. A great white-headed, bare-legged, lubberly boy of twelve years old.

9

1840.  Dickens, Old C. Shop, xxv. A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face.

10

1886.  Tennyson, Locksley Hall 60 Yrs. after, 38. This old white-headed dreamer.

11

  b.  In Irish colloq. use, with boy: Favorite, darling: cf. WHITE a. 9 and WHITE BOY 1.

12

1820.  Maturin, Melmoth, i. He was always her ‘white-headed boy,’ she said,—(imprimis, his hair was as black as jet).

13

1894.  Hall Caine, Manxman, II. xi. He was always my white-headed boy, and I stuck to him with life.

14

  3.  Of a wave: White-capped, white-crested; also of a sea covered with such waves.

15

1897.  Kipling, Captains Courageous, viii. An angry, white-headed sea.

16

1909.  E. Phillpotts, in R. P. A. Ann. (1910), 10.

        Or riotous march of mad, white-headed waves,
Panting along the indifferent feet of earth.

17