headroom

or head room

[ hed-room, -room ]

noun

1. Nautical. the clear space between two decks.
2. Also called headway.
   1. clear vertical space, as between the head and sill of a doorway, the ceiling and floor of a room, or the ceiling of a vehicular passageway and a vehicle roof, as to allow passage or comfortable occupancy:

      over 7.5 feet of headroom in the attic;

      a covered bridge with limited headroom.

   2. clear vertical space above one’s head, as in a vehicle or room:

      plenty of headroom for passengers.

3. Audio. dynamic headroom.

headroom

/ -ˌruːm; ˈhɛdˌrʊm /

noun

1. the height of a bridge, room, etc; clearance

Word History and Origins

Origin of headroom¹

First recorded in 1850–55; head + room

Example Sentences

The mixer didn’t color the sound at all and provided more than enough headroom for a strong signal without any added noise.

From Popular-Science

The controls themselves include a low-frequency cut to add clarity and headroom to bass-heavy voices, as well as a mid-boost that enhances the most prominent frequencies of the human voice and renders a more polished, production-ready sound.

From Popular-Science

The headroom is considerable, with ample space above the couches in which to unbuckle and float during the brief weightless portion of the trip.

From Time

In turn, that would provide the financial headroom to invest even more time and effort into high quality content.

From TechCrunch

Also — importantly — if Measure E passes, it would give the Sports Arena redevelopment a lot more headroom.

From Voice of San Diego

Even given the extraordinary growth off the high base it is putting up, Amazon still has plenty of headroom.

From The Daily Beast

So the Treasury Department did some fancy footwork and found some headroom by halting payments into government pension plans.

From The Daily Beast

In order to get headroom there is 'trunk' 'rise' on the deck, as shown on the cross-section drawing, 18 in.

From Project Gutenberg

Plenty of headroom has always been my cry; I believe that where it is attended to there is very rarely an accident.

From Project Gutenberg

A light airy greenhouse is their proper place, and they must have ample headroom.

From Project Gutenberg

It has more headroom, and therefore easier working facilities.

From Project Gutenberg

Moreover, we knew that barges of that size seldom have more headroom.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

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