behead
Americanverb (used with object)
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beheads,
present (3rd person singular)
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beheaded,
past participle, past
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beheading
present participle
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to cut off the head of; kill or execute by decapitation.
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Geology. (of a pirate stream) to divert the headwaters of (a river, stream, etc.).
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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beheadsimple
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beheadssimple
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have beheadedperfect
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has beheadedperfect
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am beheadingprogressive
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are beheadingprogressive
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is beheadingprogressive
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have been beheadingperfect progressive
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has been beheadingperfect progressive
Past
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beheadedsimple
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had beheadedperfect
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was beheadingprogressive
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were beheadingprogressive
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had been beheadingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of behead
before 1000; Middle English behe ( f ) den, beheveden, Old English behēafdian. See be-, head
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In 2017, in the process of expanding his cattle shed, Morandi Bonacossi said, the farmer managed to behead one of the monumental reliefs with a bulldozer.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2022
The children learned to mend their own clothing and knew how to behead and pluck a chicken.
From New York Times ● Sep. 24, 2020
A love of puzzles is clear in the call to behead the bodyless Cheshire Cat: what, exactly, would you behead?
From Nature ● Nov. 17, 2015
In Santa Monica, Nick Banning has gone so far as to behead his beloved bobblehead collection and place the figures in his front yard in a mock baseball game.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2014
A woman was in the kitchen downstairs, about to behead a coconut with a scythe.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
There you will stand for eight hours, clad in ill-fitting rubber boots and a hooded plastic onesie, while she guts and beheads an endless stream of salmon floating by on a metal belt.
From New York Times ● Sep. 7, 2021
It would be like reducing the whole of Macbeth to the final scene where Macduff beheads the King, and therefore revealing nothing about his motivation or history.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2019
So he goes to the fish market to prod clams, watches in awe as a bar owner beheads a bottle with a sword, then throws together four different risottos, all beautiful.
From The Guardian ● May 5, 2010
The poison deranges first the latest and highest products of evolution; it beheads a man, as we may say, in thin slices from above downwards.
From Woman and Womanhood A Search for Principles by C. W. (Caleb Williams) Saleeby
The whiplash of the tempest cracked the tree trunks as a child beheads a row of daisies.
From The Mississippi Bubble by Emerson Hough
England’s Hever Castle & Gardens presents an exhibition following the winding, often ambiguous visual record of Henry VIII’s second wife—and the first to be beheaded.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
The public are to be given a rare chance to see the last letter by Mary Queen of Scots, which was written just hours before she was beheaded.
From BBC ● Dec. 11, 2025
There has been no evidence that children were beheaded on Oct.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2024
Breakdancers, BMX riders and skaters will compete beneath an ancient Egyptian obelisk at the square where France’s last king and queen were beheaded.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 15, 2024
‘Well, then,’ Jason said, ‘it might take a while. But you’ll be first on the list, Kymopoleia . . . the storm goddess who beheaded a giant and saved our quest.’
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
I haven’t watched the series, so I didn’t understand why we were beheading a stuffed bear, but families seemed thrilled to explore the venue, including petting Uncle Fester’s Chupacabra.
From Barron's ● Dec. 20, 2025
Osbourne retells the infamous story of orally beheading an unsuspecting bat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
The letters date from 1578 to 1584, a few years before Mary's beheading 436 years ago - on 8 February, 1587.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2023
Halimi had pointed out, in court and in the media, that until 1943 a woman could, by law, have faced beheading by guillotine for having an abortion, such was the stigma around it.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 11, 2022
They popped out of the walls and tables to do a bit of formation gliding; Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, had a great success with a reenactment of his own botched beheading.
From "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
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