headman

See also: head man

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

headman (plural headmen)

1. Alternative form of head man
   • 2023, Mahdi Kazemian, The Headman's Dog, page 5:

     The headman entered the neighbor's house with his dog, and all the women ran into the rooms and closed the doors, and some of the curious little boys who wanted to see the headman's dog with their own eyes wisened up after the dag walked in, and they hurried up the yard's trees like cats.

2. (informal, rare, chiefly India) headmaster
   • 1995, Evelyn Wilde Mayerson, Miami, page 203:

     But then Nash speaks to the school headman on Josie's behalf and persuades him to admit my youngest son.

   • 2005, Narain Roop Sonker, Poisonous Roots, page 20:

     The Headman and the Principal of the school have taken care that the children do not learn anything and that education does not make any progress in this region.

   • 2015, Piyush Arora, My Childhood Love Story, page 38:

     Teachers were in the playground and our school Headman, Mrs. Rupali Chandra was on the stage.

3. An executioner who beheads people.
   • 2007, Decease Release, “Decease Release”, in Robert S. Miola, editor, Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources, page 197:

     My headman cast me in a blissful swoon, His axe cut off my cares from cumbered breast.

   • 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 428:

     The execution was horribly botched by a clumsy headman: 'You're hurting me,' cried the victim as the executioner hacked at his neck sixteen times until he just climbed onto the unfortunate's back and sawed through his spinal column as if he was sacrificing a sheep.

   • 2020, Beata Gontarczyk-Krampe, Notmsparker's Second Berlin Companion:

     Their axe was a replica of one which belonged to Magdeburg's headman —famous executioner Wilhelm Riedel.

Anagrams

• Damaneh, Hamedan, Hamedān, manhead