headcheese

1 9.9

A cold meat loaf made from a pig's or calf's head

noun
/ˈhɛdˌtʃiz/

: cabeza de cerdo

The charcuterie board included headcheese, which surprised many guests.
sausage and headcheese

Examples

For dinner, we enjoyed a headcheese sandwich, topped with mustard and pickles.
And Sylteflesk, a Nordic headcheese.

Blog text (1)
Chew Pompey, but hurry or else you'll become Pompey headcheese...

Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2001)
I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD THAT LIVERWURST AND HEADCHEESE SANDWICH BEFORE THIS.

RocketMan (1997)
At the deli, I ordered a slice of headcheese to try something new.

Synonyms

souse

vsheadcheese

1 9.9

Pieces of pork soaked in vinegar and set in jelly

is a broader jellied loaf made from chopped pig or calf head meats

How Gelatinous

pork jelly

7.7

aspic

4 9.9

headcheese

1 9.9

Surface Forms

headcheese singular

headcheeses plural

Morphology

headcheese = head + cheese (semi-transparent) = head + cheese

Both components are recognizable, but 'cheese' does not refer to dairy here and the compound denotes a specific jellied meat product, so the meaning is not fully derivable by learners.

Etymology

Headcheese is a literal name: head because it comes from an animal's head, and cheese because the cooked meat is pressed and set into a loaf like a 'cheese'.