headsman
English
Etymology
From 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”).
Noun
headsman (plural headsmen)
- (obsolete or Scotland) A chief person; a head man
- An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.
- 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- 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, Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado
- 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 […]"
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- (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
- (one who executes via decapitation): beheader
Translations
An executioner
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