headlong

adverb

1. not comparable 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 a

   Similar: head first · Opposite: feet first

2. not comparable With an unrestrained forward motion. Figures out today show the economy plunging headlong into recession.
3. not comparable Rashly; precipitately; without deliberation; in haste, hastily.

Opposite: arselong

adjective more headlong · most headlong

1. Precipitous. Their path led them past sharp cliffs, along narrow trails unknown and untrodden, past headlong boulders strewn across barren, treeless, wind-haunted heights.
2. Plunging downwards head foremost. On sighting their prey, they check their flight and hurtle in a headlong dive to the sea.
3. Rushing forward without restraint. Bumps, bruises, and scratches are often the result of their efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.
4. figuratively Reckless; impetuous. “Time is up,” cried another boy, more headlong than head-monitor.

verb headlongs · headlonging · headlonged

1. transitive 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.