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. A chief person; a head man
2. 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.”

   “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 who is oftentimes assisted by a younger worker called a foal.
4. One in command of a whaling vessel.