cabbagehead

English

A cabbagehead.

Union Pacific 4-4-0 locomotive with cabbagehead stack

cabbagehead (Stomolophus meleagris)

Crocidolomia pavonana life cycle

Alternative forms

• cabbage-head, cabbage head

Etymology 1

cabbage +‎ head

Noun

cabbagehead (countable and uncountable, plural cabbageheads)

1. A head of cabbage.
   • 1931, Katharine Kinard Doughtie, Groceries & Notions:

     The artichoke is elegant, but hardly sympathetic. Asparagus is nice enough, but rather apathetic. A cabbagehead is admirable, but after all is said It' s nothing really very much except a cabbagehead.

   • 1944, Elmer Reid Smith, Marion L. Edman, Georgia E. Miller, Invitation to Reading - Book 3, page 11:

     He had pulled them up by the roots and the cabbageheads were still on their stalks, which were like handles.

   • 1953, Station Bulletin - Volumes 34-54:

     They are at first white, but later become yellowish; they are very small and difficult to detect, being usually deposited singly or in groups of two or three upon the outer surface of a spreading leaf, and not upon the cabbagehead.

2. A style of smokestack on a wood-burning locomotive that has a roughly spherical top on a straight narrow stack.
   • 1947, Trains - Volume 7, page 54:

     Up till 1915 its engines carried tall balloon stacks rather than the round cabbagehead chimneys of a later era.

   • 1954, The Saturday Evening Post - Volume 226, Issue 6, page 102:

     ...and at 6:30 the train steams out over Sawgrass marsh with Emanuel Beasley, its engineer, sweating over the firebox of a cabbagehead locomotive.

   • 1955, Locomotive Engineers Journal - Volume 89, page 624:

     His first experience in engine service was on the old "cabbagehead" wood-burning engines, ...

3. A common type of jellyfish, Stomolophus meleagris
   • 1984, Lawrence S. Earley, Wildlife in North Carolina, page 22:

     The “cabbagehead” (Stomolophus meleagris), like other jellyfish, drifts on the ocean currents that ceaselessly cross the globe.

   • 1989, Nick Fotheringham, Susan B. Rothschild, Beachcomber's Guide to Gulf Coast Marine Life, page 95:

     The most conspicuous medusa in our coastal waters is the cabbagehead, Stomolophus meleagris (Figure 11.4).

   • 2003, David Bryant, George Davidson, Georgia's Amazing Coast:

     The most common jellyfish in Georgia waters is the cabbagehead.

4. (geology) A roughly spherical aggregation of a mineral.
   • 1980, Developments in Sedimentology - Volume 29, page 313:

     The iron content of these growth habits varies as follows: plates and rosettes honeycomb cabbagehead.

   • 1982, Shaly Sand, page I-155:

     The rarest growth habit of authigenic chlorite is the cabbagehead. At low magnifications they appear to be small, equidimensional grains usually attached to sand-sized grains (Fig. 15E).

   • 1985, Ruth Patrick, John M. Palms, Radiological and Ecological Studies in the Vicinity of the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station., page 183:

     Actinium-228 was the only other naturally occurring radionuclide detected in cabbagehead samples.

5. The larval form (caterpillar) of Crocidolomia pavonana, which is a pest that eats cabbages.
   • 1992, N. S. Talekar, Diamondback moth and other crucifer pests, page 81:

     However, the cabbagehead caterpillar (Crocidolomia binotalis Zeller) which is the secondary pest of cabbage, may become a serious problem, particularly during the dry season.

   • 1996, J. K. Waage, Biological Control Introductions, page 19:

     According to our studies, B. thuringiensis is effective against DBM and cabbagehead caterpillar and does not have any detrimental effects on the parasitoid (Sastrosiswojo et al, 1977).

   • 1999, Thai Journal of Agricultural Science, page 520:

     The maximum mortality of the cabbagehead caterpillar (C pavonana) and the cluster caterpillar (5. litura) approached 7096, while that of the diamondback moth (P. xylostella) was only 66.6796.

Etymology 2

cabbage +‎ -head

Noun

cabbagehead (plural cabbageheads)

1. A stupid person; an idiot.
   • 1983, Robert L. Duncan, The Queen's Messenger, page 282:

     So Marston cooperates, enters the stinking lavatory stall to change clothes, opens the diplomatic bags himself while the slow-witted cabbagehead remains outside.

   • 1992, Robin Leigh, The Hawk and the Heather, page 179:

     I can't stand to see them mistreated. I suppose it seems silly to you. You and your friends must all think me a cabbagehead.

   • 1998, Phil Farrand, The Nitpicker's Guide for X-Philes:

     A cabbagism is dialogue that is specifically added to a scene to explain a term or device to the cabbageheads in the audience.