headsman

Etymology

From head +‎ -s- +‎ -man.

Noun

headsman (plural headsmen)

1. An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes, […], printed at 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 […]"

2. (mining, historical) A boy who was not strong enough to put on his own, and was thus assisted by a younger boy called a foal.