headsman

A chief person; a head man

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[…]"

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.

One in command of a whaling vessel.