Beheader

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who performs decapitation on another for execution
2. An individual who cuts off the head of another as a form of execution or punishment
3. A person responsible for carrying out beheading, the act of severing the head from a body

Etymology: "Beheader" is a plain formation: the verb "behead," which means to cut off someone's head, with the agentive suffix "-er" attached to make a noun for the person doing the cutting. The verb itself is built from "be-," a prefix that in Old and Middle English often marked an action directed at something, and "head," the ordinary word for the part of the body that holds the brain and face. So the word literally describes one who does the heading-off. English had an older way of saying the same thing. Middle English speakers used "hedere" and "hevedare" for a decapitator or executioner, words that show the same idea of a person whose job was removing heads. "Beheader" is therefore less a new coinage than a later spelling and shape of a very old job description, one that English kept for centuries before the modern form took hold.

Synonyms: executioner, decapitator, slayer, killer, assassin