headshot

noun

head·​shot ˈhed-ˌshät 

variants or less commonly head shot

plural headshots also head shots

: a photograph of a person's head and face

When you dream of becoming a big actor, the first thing you have to do is make sure you have your headshots done.

—Stephen Adamson

The difference can be seen by comparing her 2016 headshot—which she also used for this year's Miss Michigan competition—to the recently minted headshot that will be the first thing Miss America judges see of her.

—Justine McGuire

The closet doors were covered with taped-up magazine photos of cast members from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, interspersed with a few dewy-eyed head shots of some androgynous blond actors that Nerese couldn't identify …

—Richard Price

When I saw her the next day, I noticed that she had printed out my prof's head shot from his Web site and stuck it on the dartboard in her dorm room.

—Theresa O'Rourke

Examples of headshot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Don’t preoccupy yourself too much with the plot; just enjoy the deadpan humor, excellent visual gags (like the Tim Hortons sign in Farsi), and surreal images (like the turkey dealer with large studio headshots of turkeys on the wall). —Lisa Wong MacAbasco, Vogue, 13 Feb. 2025

To secure an audition time for any location, actors should submit a current headshot and resume to Steve Scott, Artistic Director, at [e-mail]. —Post-Tribune, Chicago Tribune, 10 Feb. 2025

The punchline was met with a visual inset of Jost’s headshot. —Tony Maglio, IndieWire, 10 Feb. 2025

Pattern of Excellence: Reduced the number of consecutive headshots required to activate the perk from 4 to 3. —Kristan Hawkins, Newsweek, 6 Feb. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1936, in the meaning defined above