Other forms: headlines, headlined, headlining
The headline is the line of big bold type at the top of a news story, the part you read before deciding whether to read the rest. 'Storm shuts every school in the county.' Six words doing the work of the whole article.
In the plural it means the main news of the day — the headlines at six — and it gives the phrases make headlines and hit the headlines, both meaning to become big news. Marketing borrowed the word for the first line of an advert or a web page, the one written to stop your thumb scrolling. As an adjective it marks the biggest one: the headline act at a festival, the headline figure in a set of results. You can also headline a show, meaning to be its main performer. Headline English has a compressed grammar of its own, dropping a and the and using the present tense for things that already happened, which is why headlines read strangely when you meet them cold.
1nounheadlineThe title printed in large type at the top of a news story.
“The headline took up half the front page.”
2noundayThe main news stories of the day.
“Her arrest led the headlines for a week.”
3nounmarketingThe first line of an advertisement or web page, written to catch attention.
“We tested four versions of the headline to see which one people clicked.”
4verbperformerTo be the main performer at a concert or event.
“The band will headline the festival on Saturday night.”
Headline is exactly what it says on the page. English glued head to line: the line at the head of the story. There is no older language behind it and no buried metaphor — the word was built from two words a small child already knows.
From head + line.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA