What does heads-up mean? As an exclamation, Heads up! is used to call attention to danger or another important matter. As a basic noun, a heads-up is an advance notice or warning.
First recorded in 1940–45
First recorded in 1945–50
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Clark, who heads up the California Hospice and Palliative Care Assn., has been struggling to get clarity on the issue.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2026
Meetings could get heated as colleagues debated the way forward, said Angela Johnston, who heads up product development globally for Huggies.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026
It feels a little bit like Skynet giving us a heads up before incinerating the atmosphere, but I’ll take it.
From Slate • Feb. 8, 2026
Walz later said that he issued Minnesota’s National Guard a “warning order,” which he described as “a heads up for folks.”
From Salon • Jan. 8, 2026
Across the creek, the road heads up the far hill of the valley.
From "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
