go to someone's head

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

go to someone's head (third-person singular simple present goes to someone's head, present participle going to someone's head, simple past went to someone's head, past participle gone to someone's head)

1. (idiomatic) To strongly affect a person, especially to the detriment of his or her senses or mental faculties.
   1. To cloud one's thinking, as do alcohol and many drugs.
      • 1886, John Bartholomew Gough, Lyman Abbott, Platform Echos; or, Living Truths for Head and Heart:

        That one glass has gone to my head, that is, touched my brain; slightly, to be sure, but enough to weaken my will.

      • 1903, Jerome K. Jerome, Robert Barr, Arthur Lawrence, Sidney Sime, editors, The Idler: an illustrated monthly magazine, volume 22:

        Moreover, Dolores' promise had gone to my head like new wine.

      • 1982, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robin Scott (lyrics and music), “Left Bank”, in The Arrangement:

        Oh, red, red wine / She goes to my head / The blue cigarette / And your Italian bed

      • 2003, Homer, Emile Victor Rieu, D. Christopher H. Rieu, transl., The Odyssey:

        For I am a man of many sorrows. Yet there is no necessity for me to sit sobbing and sighing in someone else's house. Unremitting grief is tiresome and I'm afraid some of your maids or you yourself might lose patience with me and conclude it was the wine that had gone to my head and released this flood of tears.

   2. To greatly raise one's conception of their social status or accomplishments.

      He caught the biggest fish on record and it really went to his head.

Synonyms

• turn someone's head

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: nousta päähän
• French: monter à la tête (fr), entêter (fr)
• German: zu Kopf steigen (+ Dat)
• Hungarian: fejébe száll
• Italian: entrare in testa, dare alla testa
• Polish: uderzać do głowy impf, uderzyć do głowy pf
• Russian: уда́рить в го́лову (ru) pf (udáritʹ v gólovu), вскружи́ть го́лову pf (vskružítʹ gólovu)
• Serbo-Croatian: udariti u glavu
• Welsh: codi i'w ben

References

• “go to someone's head”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.