Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An imaginary personage invested with authority to put to death anybody notoriously guilty of great folly.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fool-killer.
Examples
-
The fool-killer ought to lay around here for a while.
Jim Cummings Or, The Great Adams Express Robbery A. Frank [pseud.] Pinkerton
-
And the woods are so full of that class of fellows that the fool-killer has become discouraged and jumped his job.
-
"He'll be a real man some day," thought Carson, "if the fool-killer don't pick him off first."
Judith of Blue Lake Ranch Jackson Gregory 1912
-
License 'the fool-killer' to ply his vocation on the rest of the fraternity, from the horn-book consequential, who teaches readin ', writin', spellin ', and' rithmetic, to the learned Dr. Profundus of the Faculty.
Recollections and reflections : an auto of half a century and more, 1906
-
The foregoing is irrefutable evidence that the fool-killer is enacting the rôle of cunctator.
-
It's easy to stand hard times, because that's the only thing you can do, but in good times the fool-killer has to do night work.
-
The editor was musing on this remarkable controversy and wondering, in a vague, tired way, why the fool-killer did not take a pot-shot at the Dallas Pastors 'Association, when there came a gentle rap at his door and a strange figure stood before him.
-
Miss Mary didn't say much -- she's allus mighty quiet an 'sober an' dignified; but Mandy, the second gal, she flared up an 'allowed a fool-killer would be a mighty welcome vis'tor to that neighborhood, that he would.
The Heart of Old Hickory and Other Stories of Tennessee 1895
-
In the earthquake of 1812, when the tower fell, one of the domes was crushed, but the others remained fairly solid and intact until the sixties of the last century, when, with a zeal that outran all discretion, and that the fool-killer should have been permitted to restrain, they were blown up with gunpowder by mistaken friends who expected to rebuild the church with the same material, but never did so.
The Old Franciscan Missions Of California George Wharton James 1890
-
Still the fool-killer has missed a good many on account of the great rush of business in his line, and I presume that no one has a greater reason to be thankful for this oversight than I have.
Remarks Bill Nye 1873
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.