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headsman

noun

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”), German Hauptmann (“captain”).

  1. inherited from heddysman

Definitions

  1. A chief person

    A chief person; a head man

  2. An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.

    • 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[…]"

  3. A labourer in a colliery who transports the coal from the workings to the horseway, and…

    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.

  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. One in command of a whaling vessel.

The neighborhood

  • synonymbeheaderone who executes via decapitation
  • synonymdecapitatorone who executes via decapitation

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for headsman. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA