tilt of someone's head
- noun
:
inclinación de la cabeza
- With a gentle tilt of her head, she expressed interest in what he was saying.
Examples
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Look at her slender form, the tilt of her head.
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- and the tilt of her head.
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The child's tilt of her head showed her curiosity as she listened to the story.
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He gave a slight tilt of his head when he didn't understand the question.
Synonyms
12
2.8
A slant away from a straight or level position
1
5.1
A slight forward bend of the head or body to show respect
Antonyms
How Tilted
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently built from 'tilt' (a slant/lean) combined with 'head' and the possessive 'someone's/of' specifying whose head; there is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift. This is a regular noun phrase describing a physical movement and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would understand it.
Etymology
The phrase tilt of someone's head comes from the simple image of a person slightly turning their head to one side, a small tilt people and animals make when they are curious or puzzled. That's why it now means 'curiosity', 'confusion', or 'interest'.