headroom

American  

[hed-room, -room] / ˈhɛdˌrum, -ˌrʊm /

Or head room

noun

1. Nautical. the clear space between two decks.

2. Also called headway. 

   1. clear vertical space, as between the head and sill of a doorway, the ceiling and floor of a room, or the ceiling of a vehicular passageway and a vehicle roof, as to allow passage or comfortable occupancy.

      over 7.5 feet of headroom in the attic;

      a covered bridge with limited headroom.

   2. clear vertical space above one’s head, as in a vehicle or room.

      plenty of headroom for passengers.

3. Audio. dynamic headroom.

---

headroom British  

/ -ˌruːm, ˈhɛdˌrʊm /

noun

1. the height of a bridge, room, etc; clearance

---

Etymology

Origin of headroom

First recorded in 1850–55; head + room

Example Sentences

He said: "Last year we doubled our headroom and we are forecast to cut borrowing more than any other G7 country with borrowing set to be the lowest this year since before the pandemic."

From BBC

Governments are “rapidly running out of fiscal headroom.”

From MarketWatch

Tan favors mid- to large-cap banks with clear capital headroom, disciplined cost management and rising fee-income contributions.

From The Wall Street Journal

Asked recently to outline GM’s tech strategy, he described a vision of future electric vehicles with “much higher computational ceiling or headroom.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Tan sees more capital headroom supporting more effective capital optimisation and reallocation.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• area
• arena
• capacity
• distance
• field
• location
• slot
• spot
• territory
• zone