headswoman en · NOUN
Etymology
From head + -s- + -woman.
Meanings
-
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:
-
(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:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| headswomen | Number=Plur | lexicographic |