headsman
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headsman
Where it comes from
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”).
noun headsmen
- A chief person; a head man
- An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation. 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.
- 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.
- One in command of a whaling vessel. Many had wondered why it was necessary for the headsman, as the skipper was called, to change over with the man who threw the harpoon[.]
Similar: beheader, decapitator
Thesaurus
noun
Similar: beheader, decapitator
Translations
Every language
noun An executioner
| Deutsch | Scharfrichter |
|---|---|
| Italiano | carnefice |
| Ελληνικά | αποκεφαλιστής apokefalistís |
| العربية | جَلَّاد jallād |
Talk about this word "headsman." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/headsman. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. headsman. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/headsman "headsman." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/headsman.Cite this
@misc{headsman_2026,
title = {headsman},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/headsman},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
