double-ˈheader
a. A kind of firework. U.S.
| 1869 Aldrich Story of Bad Boy 92 The smaller sort of fireworks, such as pin-wheels, serpents, double-headers. |
b. A railway train having two engines. orig. U.S.
| 1878 A. Pinkerton Strikers 216 ‘Double-headers’, or freight trains composed of a larger number of cars than the single train, and drawn by two engines. 1881 Chicago Times 12 Mar., The..express from Chicago started out with a double-header. 1971 Sunday Express (Johannesburg) 28 Mar. 24/3 Steam from a ruptured locomotive boiler scalded the flesh off two railmen when their double-header jumped the rails. |
c. In baseball, lacrosse, etc., the playing of two games in succession on the same day. N. Amer.
| 1896 Cincinnati Enquirer 30 July 2/2 In case rain should stop to-day's or to-morrow's games double headers will have to be played the next day. 1967 Boston Herald 8 May 16/4 Leading the New York Yankees past Kansas City, 8–3, for a split of their Sunday doubleheader. The Athletics won the opener, 4–1. 1968 C. Drummond Death & Leaping Ladies iv. 72 The Louisiana Lancers had..won two more double-headers on Wednesday and Thursday. 1970 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 26 Sept. 39/5 The Detroit Tigers won the first game of the doubleheader. |
d. Logging. (See quot.) U.S.
| 1905 Terms Forestry & Logging 35 Double header, a place from which it is possible to haul a full load of logs to the landing, and where partial loads are topped out or finished to the full hauling capacity of teams. |
e. Gambling. A double-headed coin. Austral. and N.Z.
| 1948 V. Palmer Golconda iv. 26 ‘What's the trouble?’..‘Dirty work. That dago, Joe Comino, trying to ring in a..double-header. Macy Donovan was keeping the [two-up] ring.’ |