[f. BULLET sb.1 + HEAD.] a. A head round like a bullet. b. A person with such a head; in U.S., fig. a ‘pig-headed,’ obstinate person. Hence Bullet-headed, -headedness.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Bullet-headed, a dull silly Fellow.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 142. He would have whipped poor bullet-head, so they called the negro.
1793. Holcroft, trans. Lavater’s Physiog., xx. 102. Savages, by being distorted, acquired the appellation of bowl- or bullet-head.
1846. Lowell, Biglow P., ix. He aint No more ’n a tough old bullethead.
a. 1849. Poe, Marginalia, lxxiv. The disgusting sternness, captiousness, and bullet-headedness of her husband.
1872. F. W. Robinson, Tito’s Troub., in Wrayford’s Ward. I was a thin, gawky, bullet-headed youth.
1875. Buckland, Log-Bk., 25. Popped his bullet head … round from the Curtain.
