Lexical Head

A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics

n. Of a syntactic category, the lexical item representing the lexical category from which that syntactic category is projected; informally, the lexical item which is the head of the head of the head …of the head of that syntactic category.

For example, the lexical head of the NP that chubby little hamster at the back of the cage is the noun hamster.