give someone their head

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Allow someone to act freely or make their own decisions

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

cho phép ai đó hành động tự do hoặc quyết định

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: let someone control the direction
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The manager gave her team their head to develop the new project

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “give someone their head” mean?

Allow someone to act freely or make their own decisions Literally: let someone control the direction

Is “give someone their head” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.