Dictionary

cheat the hangman en · VERB

Etymology

In full "cheat the hangman of his fee", since a hangman would not be paid if there was nobody to hang.

Meanings

1. To die, especially by suicide, while under sentence of death, or while guilty of a capital crime; also, to kill someone else who is in such a state.
   • Twelve were condemned to death by hanging, among them Göring, who cheated the hangman by swallowing a cyanide tablet in his cell. 2007, Bernard Wasserstein, Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in our Time, →ISBN:
   • I sincerely hope, for your sake, that Don Beltran may expiate his treason, on the old Spanish gibbet in the Recoveco, as soon as Caraccas is a little more quiet; unless, indeed, the earthquake has already cheated the hangman of his fee, as is most probable. 1831, Richard Longeville Vowell, William D. Mahoney, Campaigns and Cruises, in Venezuela and New Grenada, and in the Pacific Ocean, Longman, page 69:
2. To escape punishment for one's crimes; to get away with something.
   • Rozsa's escapes from the gendarmerie were followed closely by the invisible crowd, and every time he cheated the hangman his legend grew. 2000, Alice Freifeld, Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848-1914, →ISBN, page 107:

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