one's head off

adverb

Without restraint, hesitation, or inhibition; endlessly.

“He has been worrying his head off all morning about how he will do on the finals.”

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Meanings

adverb
  1. Without restraint, hesitation, or inhibition; endlessly.

    He has been worrying his head off all morning about how he will do on the finals.

    3 more examples

    [Tom] said now she couldn’t ever count them spoons twice alike again to save her life; and wouldn’t believe she’d counted them right, if she did! and said that after she’d about counted her head off, for the next three days, he judged she’d give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them any more.

    1884, Mark Twain, chapter 37, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, London: Thomas Nelson, page 327

    Besides, sister, I don’t want you working your head off for us—you’ve no reason to do that.

    1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC

    1998, Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible, New York: HarperFlamingo, p. 103, Late in the fall, the milky green bushes surrounding every house and path suddenly revealed themselves as poinsettias. They bloomed their heads off and Christmas rang out in the sticky heat […]

Cite this entry
APA

one's head off. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one's%20head%20off

MLA

“one's head off.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one's%20head%20off. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “one's head off,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one's%20head%20off.

Source: one's head off on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.