"head in the sand" meaning in English

See head in the sand in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: heads in the sand [plural]
Etymology: A reference to the imagined habit of the ostrich burying its head when threatened. Head templates: {{en-noun|heads in the sand}} head in the sand (plural heads in the sand)
  1. A state of disregarding or denying a problem or threat. Synonyms: head-in-the-sand [attributive] Related terms: bury one's head in the sand, ostrich effect, ostrich policy, ostrich politics
    Sense id: en-head_in_the_sand-en-noun-Fjnc3xji Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for head in the sand meaning in English (1.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "A reference to the imagined habit of the ostrich burying its head when threatened.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "heads in the sand",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "heads in the sand"
      },
      "expansion": "head in the sand (plural heads in the sand)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "People who deny the inevitable zombie apocalypse have their heads in the sand.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1961 June, B. A. Haresnape, “Design on the railway: Part Four”, in Trains Illustrated, page 354",
          "text": "In my opinion, the railways still have their heads in the sand on the subject of railway liveries.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A state of disregarding or denying a problem or threat."
      ],
      "id": "en-head_in_the_sand-en-noun-Fjnc3xji",
      "links": [
        [
          "disregard",
          "disregard"
        ],
        [
          "deny",
          "deny"
        ],
        [
          "problem",
          "problem"
        ],
        [
          "threat",
          "threat"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "bury one's head in the sand"
        },
        {
          "word": "ostrich effect"
        },
        {
          "word": "ostrich policy"
        },
        {
          "word": "ostrich politics"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "attributive"
          ],
          "word": "head-in-the-sand"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "head in the sand"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A reference to the imagined habit of the ostrich burying its head when threatened.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "heads in the sand",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "heads in the sand"
      },
      "expansion": "head in the sand (plural heads in the sand)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "bury one's head in the sand"
    },
    {
      "word": "ostrich effect"
    },
    {
      "word": "ostrich policy"
    },
    {
      "word": "ostrich politics"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "People who deny the inevitable zombie apocalypse have their heads in the sand.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1961 June, B. A. Haresnape, “Design on the railway: Part Four”, in Trains Illustrated, page 354",
          "text": "In my opinion, the railways still have their heads in the sand on the subject of railway liveries.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A state of disregarding or denying a problem or threat."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "disregard",
          "disregard"
        ],
        [
          "deny",
          "deny"
        ],
        [
          "problem",
          "problem"
        ],
        [
          "threat",
          "threat"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "attributive"
      ],
      "word": "head-in-the-sand"
    }
  ],
  "word": "head in the sand"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.