Also 8 (sense 3) -heat. [f. LOGGER sb.2 + HEAD.]
1. A thick-headed or stupid person; a blockhead.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., IV. iii. 204. Ah you whoreson loggerhead, you were borne to doe me shame.
1595. Enq. Tripe-wife (1881), 168. That shee should sweare the night before shee was wedded, that she would neuer marrie with the Grocer he was such a logger-head.
1611. Cotgr., Teste de boeuf, a ioulthead,… logerhead; one whose wit is as little as his head is great.
1708. Hearne, Collect. (O. H. S.), II. 107. A pitifull, sneaking, whining Puritan, related to ye Loggerhead at Lambeth.
a. 1754. Fielding, Fathers, V. iv. It is almost a pity to hinder these two loggerheads from falling foul of one another.
1790. Malone, Shaks. Wks., Twel. N., II. iii. 17, note. The picture of we three. I believe Shakspeare had in his thoughts a common sign, in which two wooden heads are exhibited, with this inscription under it: ‘We three loggerheads be.’ The spectator or reader is supposed to make the third.
1821. Joseph the Book-Man, 25. While loggerheads, most dignified, Are soon to wealth and rank allied.
1892. West Cumbld. Times, Christm. No. 4/1 (Cumbld. Gloss., 1899). Keep off them rods yeh gert loggerheeds.
b. A local coin or token (see quot. 1799).
1797. Sporting Mag., X. 222. The dollars which now circulate through that part of the country [Wales] go by the name of Loggerheads.
1799. J. Conder, Provincial Coins, 205. [Coins issued within the last 20 years] Loggerheads (White Metal). O[bverse]. A Cart under a Gallows, and three Men hanging, ‘The End of three Loggerheads.’
2. A head out of proportion to the body; a large or ‘thick’ head. Chiefly fig.; also in phr. to join, lay loggerheads together. (See also LOGGER a.)
1598. E. Guilpin, Skial. (1878), 52. His body is so fallen away and leane, That scarce it can his logger-head sustaine.
1667. Dryden, Sir Martin Mar-all, I. i. Now, could I break my own logger-head.
1706. [E. Ward], Wooden World Dissected (1708), 15. These two often join Logger-heads together, and broach more pernicious Contrivances.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), I. iv. 15. Let us retire, and lay our two loggerheads together.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xlii. I have been following you in fear of finding your idle loggerhead knocked against one rock or other.
3. An iron instrument with a long handle and a ball or bulb at the end used, when heated in the fire, for melting pitch and for heating liquids.
1687. in Strype, Stow’s Surv. Lond. (1720), II. V. xviii. 288/2. Not to suffer Pitch, Tar, Rozin, &c. to be heated on board by Fire, Loggerhead Shot, or any other thing.
1732. Act 5 Geo. II., c. 20 § 4. If any Master … shall … cause or permit to be heated or melted by Fire, Logger Heat, Shot … any Pitch, Tar, Rosin, Grease [etc.].
1760. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 158/2. We put hot logger heads in buckets of tar and pitch.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Logger-head, an iron for heating tar.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., v. Three or four loggerheads (long irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of flip.
1900. Alice M. Earle, Stage Coach & Tavern Days, v. 108. Into this mixture [flip] was thrust and stirred a red-hot loggerhead, made of iron and shaped like a poker.
4. ‘An upright rounded piece of wood, near the stern of a whale-boat, for catching a turn of the line to’ (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 1867). Also transf.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xiii. 30. The saddles … have large pommels or loggerheads in front, round which the ‘lasso’ is coiled when not in use.
1850. Scoresby, Cheever’s Whaleman’s Adv., ix. (1859), 116. It passes … around a post called the loggerhead, firmly secured to the frame of the boat.
1898. F. T. Bullen, Cruise ‘Cachalot,’ 39. I looked for the rushing of the line round the loggerhead (a stout wooden post built into the boat aft).
b. (See quot.)
1836. Hebert, Engin. & Mech. Encycl., II. 702. The beam or loggerhead, for the purpose of transmitting the motion of the piston to the pumps in the mine.
5. ? = LOGGAT.
1871. G. R. Cutting, Student Life Amherst Coll., 112. The game of ‘loggerheads’ has become obsolete, in this part of the country…. A ‘loggerhead’ was a spherical mass of wood, with a long handle, and the game consisted of an attempt to hurl this towards a fixed stake, in such a manner as to leave it as near as possible.
6. As the popular name of various heavy-headed animals. a. (Also loggerhead turtle, † tortoise.) A species of turtle, Thalassochelys caretta.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 4. The Loggerhead Turtle.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1729), i. 103. There are 4 sorts of sea turtle…. The Loggerhead is so call’d, because it hath a great head.
1772–84. Cook, Voy. (1790), I. 30. On the 24th we caught a large loggerhead tortoise.
a. 1845. Hood, Turtles, vii. Poor loggerheads from far Ascension ferried!
1884. Girl’s Own Paper, Feb., 227/1. A rarer kind [of tortoise-shell] is derived from the loggerhead turtle, a native of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
1895. Royal Nat. Hist., V. 83. The third, and probably the largest species of turtle, is the loggerhead (Thalassochelys caretta), easily recognised by its enormous head. Ibid., 84. The Mexican loggerhead (T. kempi), from the Gulf of Mexico, differs in [etc.].
b. applied to (a) two species of tyrant-bird inhabiting Jamaica, Pitangus caudifasciatus and Myiarchus validus or crinitus; (b) a N. American shrike, Lanius ludovicianus or carolinensis; (c) a large duck of the Falkland Islands, Tachyeres or Micropterus cinereus, the Race-horse or Steamer-duck.
1657. S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., 128. In the Island of Barbadoes, and the adjacent Islands, are certain birds bigger than Sparrows, with a very great head, called by the English Logerheads and Counsellors.
1713. Ray, Syn. Avium, 185. Sitta seu Picus cinereus major, capite nigro. A Loggerhead.
1725. Sloane, Jamaica, II. 300. [Sitta, seu picus Ray] They … let Men come so near them that they knock them down with Sticks, whence they have the Name of Loggerheads.
1775. Clayton, Falkland Islands, in Phil. Trans., LXVI. 104. Here is a species of ducks, called the loggerhead, from its large head.
1831. A. Wilson & Bonaparte, Amer. Ornith., II. 86. Lanius carolinensis, Wilson. Lanius ludovicianus, Linnæus.—Loggerhead Shrike. Ibid., 87. It is generally known by the name of the loggerhead.
c. dial. applied to various fishes, as the bullhead; also to the tadpole. (See Eng. Dial. Dict.)
1775. Clayton, in Phil. Trans., LXVI. 102. There are three or four species of the common loggerhead, or sculpa fish, common on the English coasts.
1880–4. F. Day, Brit. Fishes, II. 179. Leuciscus cephalus.… Large-headed dace; loggerhead.
d. dial. applied to various large moths.
1847. Halliwell, Loggerhead, the large tiger moth. North.
1893. in Northumbld. Gloss.
1894. Hetton-le-Hole Gloss, Loggerhead, a clouded butterfly. Large moths are also sometimes called ‘loggerheads.’
1899. Cumbld. Gloss., Logger-heed, any kind of moth. The Ghost Moth.
7. dial. A plant of the genus Centaurea.
1829. [J. L. Knapp], Jrnl. Naturalist, 25. The crop consists almost entirely of the common field scabious (Scabiosa succisa), logger-heads (Centauria nigra) [etc.].
1866. Cockayne, Leechdoms, III. 315. Saxon Names Plants, Bolwes, loggerheads, centaurea nigra.… Loggerheads is a name I have often heard in Oxfordshire.
8. pl. in various phrases. † To fall, get, go to loggerheads: to come to blows. To be at loggerheads: to be contending about differences of opinion; also, rarely, to come to loggerheads.
[The use is of obscure origin; perh. the instrument described in 3, or something similar, may have been used as a weapon.]
1680. Kirkman, Eng. Rogue, IV. i. 6. They frequently quarrell’d about their Sicilian wenches, and indeed … they seem … to be worth the going to Logger-heads for.
1681. Trial of S. Colledge, 49. So we went to loggerheads together, I think that was the word, or Fisty-cuffs.
1755. Smollett, Quix. (1803), I. 66. The others … went to loggerheads with Sancho, whom they soon overthrew.
1806. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 63. In order to destroy one member of the administration, the whole were to be set to loggerheads.
1831. J. W. Croker, in C. Papers, 25 Jan. I hear from London that our successors are at loggerheads.
1887. Frith, Autobiog., I. xxiv. 347. The Lord Chancellor … and the Bishop came to loggerheads in the House of Lords.
9. attrib. or adj. = LOGGER-HEADED.
1684. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 301. For sayeing col. Sidney’s jury were a loggerhead jury.
10. Comb.: loggerhead sponge, a West Indian sponge of inferior quality; ‘probably named from Loggerhead Key’ (Webster, Suppl., 1902).
