Meaning & use
cohead
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Meanings
verbtransitive
to lead or be in charge of an organization, department, or project together with one or more other people.
Grammar: Takes an object: She coheads the department. Often used in the passive: The committee is coheaded by two professors.
Patterns
- cohead something
- cohead something with someone
- be coheaded by someone
Two senior managers cohead the new product team.
She coheads the research division with a colleague from another campus.
The festival was coheaded by a local artist and a city official.
nouncountable
one of two or more people who share the leadership of a group or organization.
Grammar: Countable: She is a cohead of the department. Often followed by 'of': the cohead of the committee.
Patterns
- a cohead of something
- serve as cohead
The coheads of the project meet every Monday morning.
He was named cohead of the language school last year.
As cohead, she shares responsibility for the budget with her partner.
Word forms
| third person singular | coheads |
|---|---|
| past tense | coheaded |
| past participle | coheaded |
| -ing form | coheading |
| plural | coheads |
Common combinations
- cohead a department
- They cohead the department and split the administrative work.
- cohead with someone
- She coheads the committee with a retired teacher.
- be coheaded by
- The task force is coheaded by two directors.
- appointed cohead
- He was appointed cohead of the sales team.
Synonyms and how they differ
- co-lead
- Co-lead is very close and slightly more common in project management; cohead often suggests a more formal, permanent position.
- co-direct
- Co-direct is used more for artistic or film projects, while cohead is used for organizations and departments.
- share leadership
- A phrase rather than a single word, but it describes the same idea without naming the role.
Word family
- cohead noun
- One of the people sharing the leadership role.
- coheadship noun
- The state or arrangement of having two or more heads.
Commonly confused: cohead or co-ed? cohead or codhead?
cohead vs co-ed
Co-ed means a student at a mixed-gender school or a mixed-gender school itself; it sounds similar but has nothing to do with leadership.
cohead vs codhead
Codhead is an insulting dialect word for a person from a particular English town; it is spelled with a 'd' and is offensive.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'cohead' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Cohead' is transitive and takes a direct object: cohead the department. The other options either separate the verb from its object awkwardly or add prepositions ('to', 'in') that do not fit this verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cohead”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.