asshead

English

Etymology

From ass (“donkey”) +‎ head.

Noun

asshead (plural assheads)

1. (derogatory or offensive, slang, mildly vulgar) an idiotic or undesirable person.
   • 1550, Hugh Latimer, A Sermon preached at Stamford, 9 October, 1550, in The Sermons and Life of Hugh Latimer, edited by John Watkins, London: Aylott & Son, Vol. I, p. 288,^[1]

     But some will say, our curate is naught, an asshead, a dodipole, a lack-latin, and can do nothing: Shall I pay him my tithes, that doth us no good or none will do? Yea, I say, thou must pay him his due; and if he be such a one, complain to the bishop.

   • 1561, Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528), translated by Thomas Hoby, London: David Nutt, 1900, Book One, pp. 41-42,^[2]

     To disgrace therefore many untowardly asseheades, that through malepertnes thinke to purchase them the name of a good Courtyer, I would have suche a pastime for this night, that one of the company myght bee picked out who should take in hand to shape in woordes a good Courtyer, specifying all suche condicions and particuler qualities, as of necessitie must be in hym that deserveth this name.

   • 1565, Levinus Lemnius, The Touchstone of Complexions [De habitu et constitutione corporis, 1561], translated by Thomas Newton, in James Winny (ed.), Elizabethan Prose Translations, Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 22-23,^[3]

     For where the spirits be gross, thick and cold, it happeneth the mind be overclouded, and as the dimmed sun not to shine broad out, and this is the reason that persons in this sort affected have duller wits and blunter capacities. For proof thereof we are to see and consider such as are born and bred near to the Pole Arctic and icy sea, who for the most part are very huge and strong-bodied, but for wit and learning mere dolts and assheads.

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do you?

Anagrams

• Saadehs