The Collaborative International Dictionary
heads-up \heads-up\ adj. maintaining presence of mind; alert and attentive; able to recognize and take quick advantage of opportunities; resourceful; as, he played good heads-up baseball.
Syn: wide-awake.
heads-up \heads-up\ n. [From its use as an interjection to warn of impending danger.] a warning to be prepared for an imminent event.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"clever, alert," 1952, from warning cry "heads up!" (i.e. "look up!"), attested by 1939.
Wiktionary
a. 1 With head directly above the neck, eyes front. 2 alert; vigilant alt. (context chiefly US idiomatic English) A warning or call to pay attention; an advisory notice. n. (context chiefly US idiomatic English) A warning or call to pay attention; an advisory notice.
WordNet
adj. fully alert and watchful; "played heads-up ball" [syn: wide-awake]
Usage examples of "heads-up".
The heads-up display within his helmet visor copied the info shown on the dashboard multifunction display.
Jake put the pipper in the heads-up display on the plane, and got a rattling tone in his ears, the locked-on signal from the heat-seeking Sidewinder that had given the missile its name.
Occasionally, one of them looked away from the large central display to check a readout on one of the several drifting heads-ups that followed each of them around the room like so many flat, rectangular, semitransparent dogs.
The transponder beeped softly, lights flickering briefly in the heads-up display, and Cerise gave a sigh of relief.
They slid at last into the docking point, and a security guard, soberly suited, but with the mirrored glasses that hid a heads-up display, and at least one minigun concealed in his perfect tailoring, keyed open the door.
The cabbie touched a sensor plate, and the windscreen of the cab lit with a closeup of LeShaun Kinnison's oversharp face on heads-up display.
Seconds later Humphrey got a blinking diamond in the middle right side of his heads-up display, indicating that the first-up Sidewinder had locked on to the bizjet and was in the launch zone.
While the offer was generous, this wasn't about a few easily willed creatures that could give him a heads-up with a bark… like a coupla security dogs… dayum.
Mundy said, still staring at the attitude indicator but finally getting enough stability back to glance at the heads-up display and other indicators.
Fodor dropped the receiver as he jumped back to help steady the satellite dish, which one of the soldiers had been heads-up enough to hold, but the receiver itself was knocked on its side and one of the coaxial cables was ripped from the back of the dish.
Its cockpit was futuristic, featuring advanced digital instrumentation, a wide laser-projection heads-up display and a digital computer-controlled weapons monitor panel.
He checked his blue RDY light to the right of the heads-up display, meaning that the slipway door was open, the fuel system was depressurized, the slipway lights were on, and the system ready for refueling.
The heads-up display on the visor of his helmet gave him a sensor reading that indicated that the Glat Archive was only a few more minutes away, if he kept swimming at his current pace.
Immediately, new screens winked to life and freshly charged heads-ups glowed to one side and overhead.
The Level A linkage they were using right now really wasn't much better than the baseline heads-ups the poppers who flew Axeheads or Dragonflies got.