headsman
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English heddysman, equivalent to head + -s- + -man. Cognate with Scots hedisman, heidisman (“head man; chief; commander”). Compare also Danish høvedsmand (“captain”), Swedish hövitsman (“captain”), Icelandic höfuðsmaður (“captain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”).
Noun
editheadsman (plural headsmen)
- (obsolete or Scotland) A chief person; a head man
- An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
- And of those base-minded jesters or buffons, some have beene seene, that even at the point of death would never leave their jesting and scoffing. He whom the heads-man threw off from the Gallowes cried out, ‘Row the Gally,’ which was his ordinarie by-word.
- 1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC:
- And made him Headsman, for we said, / "Who's next to be decapited / Cannot cut off another's head / Until he's cut his own off […]"
- (mining, historical) A labourer in a colliery who transports the coal from the workings to the horseway, and who is oftentimes assisted by a younger worker called a foal.
- (nautical) One in command of a whaling vessel.
Synonyms
edit- (one who executes via decapitation): beheader, decapitator
Translations
editCategories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms interfixed with -s-
- English terms suffixed with -man
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- English terms with obsolete senses
- Scottish English
- English terms with quotations
- en:Mining
- English terms with historical senses
- en:Nautical
- en:Death
- en:Occupations
- en:People
- en:Prison