public executioner
- noun
- /ˈpʌblɪk ɪkˈsɛkjuːʃənər/
- NSFW
:
verdugo
- The public executioner carried out the court's sentence in front of the gathered crowd.
Examples
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As a man of honor and a gentleman, you are bound to die ignominiously... at the hands of the public executioner.
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Razumovsky is best known as the confidant and supporter of the deeply conservative social thinker, Joseph de Maistre, perhaps best remembered for his quip that the public executioner is the guardian of social order.
Academic text (1993) -
But deep, deep Blair, his son was the last public executioner, did the last public execution back when.
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Public executioner: Town officials have ordered me to burn all these writings of Martin Luther.
Fiction book (1998) -
*Aldo, assistant to the pope, public executioner, headnote crowd, in a village square
Fiction book (1998) -
Then, if you really mean what you say, ...don't spoil yourself by committing suicide... but be beheaded handsomely at the hands of the public executioner.
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In medieval times, the public executioner was often feared and shunned by society.
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The role of the public executioner involved both a heavy burden and a grim responsibility.
Synonyms
47
7.2
A person who puts someone to death as a legal punishment
9
7.3
A person who kills prisoners with a rope as punishment
1
9.9
A person who puts a prisoner to death using an electric chair
A woman who kills people as a legal punishment by placing a rope around their neck
A person who cuts off someone's head as a punishment
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents have straightforward, literal meanings and their combination yields an obvious interpretation: an executioner who performs executions that are public or is publicly recognized in that role. The noun 'executioner' already denotes the official who carries out death sentences and 'public' simply specifies the manner or visibility, a compositional modification that is cross-linguistically common and predictable for learners who know both words.
Etymology
Public executioner comes from old times when punishments were done openly and criminals were put to death in the town square. The executioner was the official who did this in front of the public, so the name came to mean the person who 'puts someone to death' for the court.