TO HAVE A BIG-HEAD, phr. (American).—1. To be conceited; bumptious; ‘cocksure’; affected in manner: also SWELLED-HEAD.
1848. BARTLETT, Dictionary of Americanisms, 43. Boys who smoke cigars, chew tobacco, drink strong liquors, gamble, and treat their parents and superiors as their inferiors—of such a boy it is said, ‘He has GOT THE BIG HEAD.’
1888. Texas Siftings, Oct. 20. If we were to base our calculation upon the corpulency of his iron hat and helmet, we should say it was a case of BIG-HEAD, while his legs were long as a pair of duplex pinchers, his arms like the fans of a windmill, his feet like the foot of Mont Blanc, while his digital annex is like an inverted ham.
2. (common).—The after effect of a debauch. To get a BIG-HEAD = to get drunk: see SCREWED.
1887. F. FRANCIS, Jun., Saddle and Mocassin, xiv. 259. All the Colonel’s tact and diplomacy were necessary to preserve peace now, for the Superintendent, having adopted the peon notion, clung to it, and the ‘boys,’ some of whom were friends of the Colonel’s and gentlemen anywhere, and all of whom were gentlemen on the frontier, got the ‘BIG HEAD,’ and displayed effervescence scarcely less remarkable than that of the champagne itself.
