1. The head or pointed part of an arrow, made separately and of different material from the shaft.
1483. Cath. Angl., Arowhede, barbellum, catella.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 135. Two maner of arrowe heades … was vsed in olde tyme. The one … hauyng two poyntes or barbes, lookyng backewarde to the stele and the fethers, which surely we call in Englishe a brode arrowe head or a swalowe tayle. The other … hauing .ii. poyntes stretchyng forwarde, and this Englysh men do call a forke-head. The Parthyans vsed brode Arrowe heades…. Our Englyshe heades be better in war than eyther forked heades or brode arrowe heades.
1618. Pulton, Coll. Stat. 7 Hen. IV., vii. Arrow-heads shall be well boiled, brased, and hardened.
1870. Bryant, Homer, IV. I. 110. He forced the string to meet His breast, the arrow-head to meet the bow.
b. esp. Those of flint, jade, or similar substances, found among the relics of prehistoric times.
1661. Sir R. Gordon, in Burton, Hist. Scotl., I. 136, note. Hos vulgus patrio sermone elf arrow-heads vocant.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. Elf Arrows, Very small arrow-heads made out of a talky fissile stone are found in Virginia and Barbadoes.
1769. Pennant, Tour Scot., 115 (Jam.). Elf-shots, i. e. the stone arrow-heads of the old inhabitants of this island, are supposed to be weapons shot by Fairies at cattle.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann., I. vi. 181. Arrow-heads, are for the most part made of flint.
1855. Longf., Hiaw., IV. 263. Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, Arrow-heads of chalcedony.
2. Broad arrow-head. a. prop. a kind of arrow-head: see quot. 1545 in 1 a. b. transf. = Broad-arrow: see ARROW sb. 10. c. fig. Any mark or impression resembling these.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., i. At every stationary boat or barge that split the current into a broad-arrow-head.
3. in Cartography, etc. = ARROW 3 b.
1836. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, II. 297. In the vignette the arrow-heads indicate the direction of the currents.
1870. Todhunter, Mech. for Beg., 3. Sometimes an arrow head is used in a figure to indicate [the direction in] which the force tends.
4. Bot. English name of the endogenous genus of plants, Sagittaria, of which the common European species, S. sagittifolia (found from Virginia to China and Japan), has floating leaves shaped like an arrow-head.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, 337. Sagittaria may be called in English the water Archer, or Arrow heade.
1611. Cotgr., Sagette … the Ditch-weed called Arrow-head.
1809. Crabbe, Tales, 37. The Fen itself has a dark and saline herbage; there are rushes and Arrow-heads.
1883. Howells, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 70/2. The cat-tails and arrow-heads in the ‘ma’sh’ at Ponkwasset.
5. attrib. or adj.; = ARROW-HEADED 2.
1875. Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, i. 24. ’Tis easier to … decipher the arrowhead character, than to interpret these familiar sights.
1877. Dawson, Orig. World, i. 24. The arrow-head writing, afterwards used by the Assyrians.
Comb., as Arrow-head-maker.
1598. Stow, Surv. (ed. Strype, 1754), II. V. xiii. 304/2. Besides these two trades belonging to Archers there were also two more, Stringers and Arrow head makers.
1647. Haward, Crown Rev., 26. Arrow-head-maker: Fee … 6l. 1s. 8d.
