light-headed, a.
1. Disordered in the head; giddy, delirious. † Of a fever: Characterized by delirium.
| ? 1537 Latimer Let. in Serm. & Rem. (Parker Soc.) 391, I am light-headed for lack of sleep. 1603 North's Plutarch (1612) 1204 If they be light headed and distraught of their wits. 1663 Pepys Diary 31 Oct., The Queene continues light-headed, but in hopes to recover. 1747 Mem. Nutrebian Crt. I. v. 89, I was carried home senseless and extremely bruised, which caused me to fall into a light-headed fever. 1870 Morris Earthly Par. I. i. 234 Some..were sore afeard That she had grown light-headed with her woe. |
2. Of persons and their actions: Frivolous, injudicious, thoughtless; changeful, fickle.
| 1579–80 North Plutarch, J. Cæsar (1595) 764 These..were speaches fitter for a rash light headed youth, then for his [Cæsar's] Person. 1590 R. Hichcock Quintess. Wit 89 He is ouer-light-headed, to change himselfe firste into one parte, then into another. 1632 Lithgow Trav. ix. 388 He was no suppressour of the subiects..to inrich light-headed flatterers. a 1674 Clarendon Hist. Reb. xiv. §120 A light-headed Nuntio, who did much mischief to his Majesty's service. 1828 Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 144 The poor light⁓headed cicada-swarm of a Chorus. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. I. iii. 144 Such thoughts were in the meantime counteracted by the light-headed doings of the Queen Dowager. |
† 3. quasi-adv. Obs.
| 1639 Fuller Holy War i. v. (1640) 6 We see how light⁓headed this Pagan did talk, being stark drunk with pride. |
Hence light-ˈheadedly adv., light-ˈheadedness.
| 1722 De Foe Plague (1754) 187 Diliriums, and what we call Lightheadedness. 1813 L. Hunt in Examiner 31 May 350/1 A fit of religious light-headedness. 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. 291 A sort of intermittent fever with fits of light-headedness off and on. 1844 Dickens Mart. Chuz. xxiv, As to lightheadedness, there never was such a feather of a head as mine. 1886 Stevenson Dr. Jekyll x. (ed. 2) 128 Gloating on my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future. |