price on someone's head

From the earlier punishment of beheading criminals. The usage of this idiom began in the mid-1700s.

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price on someone's head

1. (idiomatic) A compensation for capturing or killing someone, especially a criminal.

   The police put a price on his head after he killed four innocent women.

   • 2005 February 6, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary‎, archived from the original on 7 December 2023:

     "The price on our respective heads has more zeros in it than Pearl Harbor in 1941. Certainly there are safer places to 'get out.'"

• Christine Ammer (1997–2013) “price on someone's head”, in American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.