headcase

• head-case, head case

head +‎ case

headcase (countable and uncountable, plural headcases)

1. (informal, derogatory, countable) A mentally unbalanced, unpredictable person, especially one who displays aggressive behavior.
   • 2004 April 5, Sean Gregory, “Full-Court Stress”, in Time‎, archived from the original on 2010-10-28:

     "A stockbroker doesn't have 80,000 people sitting behind him just waiting for a mistake," says Jim Fassel, whom fans serenaded with "Fire Fassel!" chants during his final weeks as head coach of the New York Giants last season. "It can drive you crazy." From head coach to head case in three easy steps.

2. (genetics, uncountable) A genetic sequence that inhibits terminal branching of the trachea and regulates dendrite pruning.

   Synonym: hdc

   • 2016, Kazuo Emoto, Rachel Wong, Eric Huang, Casper Hoogenraad, editors, Dendrites: Development and Disease, Springer, →ISBN, page 280:

     Another gene downstream of EcR/Usp is headcase. Screening genes that show genetic interactions with EcR mutants, Loncle and Williams identified headcase as a regulator of dendrite pruning (Loncle and Williams 2012).

• case head