to smash the head
- phrasal verb
- /smæʃ ðə hɛd/
- Offensive
- The attacker tried to smash the head of his enemy with a heavy object.
Examples
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Don't smash the head of that poor animal!
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In the novel, the villain threatens to smash the head of anyone who betrays him.
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She warned him not to smash the head of the statue while moving it.
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Why would anyone smash the head of another person?
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He smashed the head of the mannequin to demonstrate the strength of the toy.
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The boxing champion smashed his opponent's head with a powerful right hook.
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During the fight, he accidentally smashed the head of the opponent against the ring post.
Synonyms
To hit someone hard on the head to seriously hurt them
To knock someone out with one sudden hard punch
To hit someone or something hard with your head
To work very hard or to threaten to hit someone
Hit someone in the face very hard to hurt them
To hit someone with a short heavy stick, often on the head
To hit someone's face very hard to hurt them
Threaten to hit a person's face and hurt them
Antonyms
How Violent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally literal: 'smash' (to break or strike with great force) applied to 'head' (the body part) yields the violent action described, and the definite article does not change this basic meaning. This literal, cross-linguistically common construction would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Smash the head comes from the literal image of the verb smash, meaning to hit or break very hard, being done to the head with a heavy object. That's why it means 'to violently strike or attack a person's head'.