Headin

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. Traveling in a particular direction toward a destination ; a title placed above a section of writing to introduce its contents
2. Going toward a place or goal in an informal, dialect spelling of heading ; a label set at the top of a passage to name what follows
3. Moving on a course toward somewhere ; a caption or title that stands over a block of text and announces its subject

Etymology: "Headin'" is an informal spelling of "heading," with the final g dropped to match casual speech. The base word is "head," from Old English "heafod," which is shared with German "Haupt" and Dutch "hoofd," so the family of words goes back to a common Germanic ancestor. The ending "-ing" is the Old English suffix that forms participles and verbal nouns, so "heading" is simply "head" used as a verb, meaning to move toward a place, plus the noun sense of a direction or course. Dropping the g in writing reflects a pronunciation that has long been common in speech, though it is not standard in print.