headswoman

H4E1A1D2S1W4O1M3A1N1

noun

A female headsman; a female executioner that carries out executions by decapitation.

Scrabble 19
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounheadswoman (plural headswomen)

plural headswomen

  1. A female headsman; a female executioner that carries out executions by decapitation.

    No candid person will wholly dismiss the proposition that the idea of having a Lord Chancellor but not a Lady Chancellor may at least be connected with the idea of having a headsman but not a headswoman, a hangman but not a hangwoman.

    1910, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World, chapter 3 part 9
  2. East Anglia(obsolete) A midwife.

    HEADSWOMAN, s. a midwife. It would be presumptuous to pry into obstetric mysteries, to discover the origin or propriety of this denomination.

    1830, Robert Forby, The Vocabulary of East Anglia, volume II, London: J. B. Nichols and Son, page 154

Origin

From head + -s- + -woman.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

headswoman. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/headswoman

MLA

“headswoman.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/headswoman. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “headswoman,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/headswoman.

Source: headswoman on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.