headlong means precipitous. Lexicurio rates it Distinctive — a strength score of 68 out of 100.
headlong is pronounced /ˈhɛd.lɒŋ/.
Etymology
From Middle English hedlong, alteration of hedling, heedling, hevedlynge (“headlong”), assimilated to long. More at headling.
adj
- Precipitous.“Their path led them past sharp cliffs, along narrow trails unknown and untrodden, past headlong boulders strewn across barren, treeless, wind-haunted heights.”
- Plunging downwards head foremost.“On sighting their prey, they check their flight and hurtle in a headlong dive to the sea.”
- Rushing forward without restraint.“Bumps, bruises, and scratches are often the result of their efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.”
- Reckless; impetuous.““Time is up,” cried another boy, more headlong than head-monitor.”
adv
- With the head first or down.“[A] sharp-looking old dame, […] inhabited a "laigh [low] shop," anglicé [in English], a cellar, opening to the High-street by a strait and steep stair, at the bottom of which she sold tape, thread, needles, skeans of worsted, coarse linen cloth, and such feminine gear, to those who had the courage and skill to descend to the profundity of her dwelling, without falling headlong themselves, or throw”
- With an unrestrained forward motion.“Figures out today show the economy plunging headlong into recession.”
- Rashly; precipitately; without deliberation; in haste, hastily.
verb
- To precipitate.“If a stranger be setting his pace and face toward some deep pit, or steep rock — such a precipice as the cliffs of Dover — how do we cry aloud to have him return ? yet in mean time forget the course of our own sinful ignorance, that headlongs us to confusion.”