Which command is used to display the first few lines of a text file?

The command used to display the first few lines of a text file is "head." This command is specifically designed for that purpose and, by default, shows the first ten lines of a given file. It is particularly useful for quickly viewing the beginning part of larger files without having to open the entire file.

The other commands serve different purposes: "tail" is used to display the last few lines of a file, "cat" concatenates and displays the entire content of a file, and "less" allows for viewing the content of a file one screen at a time but does not default to just the first few lines. Thus, "head" is the correct choice for this specific task.