the.com/headmaster
The boss whose office you only visited when something had gone gloriously wrong.
means The man in charge of running a school, especially a private or independent one, responsible for its staff, students, and discipline.
from A transparent compound of "head" — meaning chief or principal, from Old English "heafod," the same word for the thing on your shoulders — and "master," from Latin "magister," a teacher or person in authority. "Master" had long meant a schoolteacher in English (think "schoolmaster") before "head" was bolted on to crown the most senior of them. The female counterpart "headmistress" follows the same logic with "mistress," the feminine of "master."
- old word
- Used in England since the 1570s
- the cane
- Once wielded corporal punishment, now banned in UK schools
- rank above
- Often answers to a board of governors
- gender split
- Headmistress runs the female equivalent term
- modern name
- Largely replaced by the neutral headteacher
dumbledore — fictional headmaster of hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry in the harry potter series
headmaster of eton college — simon henderson has led the prestigious english boarding school since 2015
headmaster of harrow school — jim hawkins leads one of the oldest independent schools in london, founded 1572