to head off
Preserved but no longer current.
To intercept; get ahead of and force to turn back. To hit the nail on the head. To guess aright; to do the right thing. The allusion is obvious. The French say, Voits avezfrappe au but (You have hit the mark); the Italians have the phrase, Avete dato in brocca (You have hit the pitcher), alluding to a game where a pitcher stood in the place of Aunt Sally (#.v.).
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “to head off” mean?
To intercept; get ahead of and force to turn back. To hit the nail on the head. To guess aright; to do the right thing. The allusion is obvious. The French say, Voits avezfrappe au but (You have hit the mark); the Italians have the phrase, Avete dato in brocca (You have hit the pitcher), alluding to a game where a pitcher stood in the place of Aunt Sally (#.v.).
Is “to head off” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.