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Webster 1913 Edition


Headsman

Heads′man

(hĕdz′man)
,
Noun.
;
pl.
Headsmen
(-men)
.
An executioner who cuts off heads.
Dryden.

Webster 1828 Edition


Headsman

HEADSMAN

,
Noun.
hed'sman. One that cuts off heads; an executioner. [Unusual.]

Definition 2024


headsman

headsman

English

Noun

headsman (plural headsmen)

  1. An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.
    • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, I.40:
      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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