Also 6 bullyhead.
1. A small freshwater fish with a large head (Aspidophorus cataphractes); the Miller’s Thumb.
c. 1450. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 704. Hic capito, a bulhede.
1558. Act 1 Eliz., xvii. Places where Smelts, Loches, Minnies, Bulheads, [etc.] … have been used to be taken.
1653. Walton, Angler, 232. The Miller’s thumb or Bull-head is a fish of no pleasing shape.
1841. H. Miller, O. R. Sandst., iii. 77. The river bull-head, when attacked by an enemy, or immediately as it feels the hook in its jaws, erects its two spines at nearly right angles with the plates of the head.
2. A tadpole. Now only dial.
1611. Cotgr., Cavesot, a Pole-head, or Bull-head; the little black vermine whereof toads and frogs do come.
1883. Lanc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Bull-heads, Bull-Jones, tadpoles.
† 3. A mass of curled or frizzled hair worn over the forehead; called also BULL-TOUR. Obs.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 3. To trick up the good old Bishop in a yellow Coif and a Bulls-head, that he may … appear in Fashion.
1673. [R. Leigh], Transpr. Rehears’d, 140. Preferring the Blue and White Aprons before the Glories of her Yellow Hood and Bull-head.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. xvii. § 119. Some term this curled Forehead from the French word Taure, a Bull-head…. This was the fashion of Women to wear Bull-heads, or Bull like foreheads, Anno 1674.
4. ‘A stupid fellow; a blockhead.’ J. Also attrib.
1624. Essex’s Ghost, in Harl. Misc., III. 514. Why should this bull-head bishop … against me roar with brazen bull?
