like a whitehead

like a whitehead (comparative more like a whitehead, superlative most like a whitehead)

1. Alternative form of like whiteheads
   • 1893, Roster and Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Encampment of the Department of Ohio, Grand Army of the Republic, pages 187–188:

     I told you a year ago that when the occasion required he ran at the enemy like a “Whitehead,” and I told you that like the rest of us, when occasion required, he ran the other way like a “Whitehead ;” but he was not like the King of France, who, with thirty thousand men marched up to the top of the hill, and then marched down again.

   • 2015, B.A. Botkin, Alvin F. Harlow, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore:

     Holy Smokes! I was scairt. Then the train hit a curve so fast I had to fight like a whitehead to keep her from pitchin' me out.