bourreau

Tu étais un vrai bourreau des coeurs, your smile would break a mother's heart, thus she'd talk.

Excerpt: Animal's People by Indra Sinha 2008

“Comment, bourreau! tu fais des cris!” — “How, hangman! thou bellowest!”

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

Mais on ne se soustrait pas ainsi à son destin: en tant qu'expert psycho-criminologique, elle est appelée sur une scène de crime - une jeune femme retrouvée avec une hideuse balafre qui vaut à son bourreau le surnom de 'l'Homme qui rit'.

pinku-tk Diary Entry pinku-tk 2007

“They thought I was a bourreau an executioner, so after they passed the bottle, they bound my arms to my sides.”

The Serpent and the Rainbow Wade Davis 1985

Finally, there were three positions of note: the bourreau, or executioner, whose task it was to enforce the collective decisions of the society; the chasseur, or hunter, who was dispatched to bring culprits before the society; and the sentinelle, who was positioned at the gate as a scout to prevent unwelcome individuals from entering a society gathering.

The Serpent and the Rainbow Wade Davis 1985

Balzac, while being _un bourreau d'argent_, would have thought himself dishonored in subordinating his art to questions of commercialism; M. de Girardin only esteemed literature in so far as it was a profitable business.

Women in the Life of Balzac Juanita Helm Floyd

Tristan has no sword, begs one of the _bourreau_, and is refused.

A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century George Saintsbury 1889

At Warsaw they call my aunt, on account of her abrupt manners, _le bourreau bienfaisant_.

Without Dogma Henryk Sienkiewicz 1881

En parlant de lui on ne disait plus que “le bourreau”.

Le Petit Chose (part 1) Histoire d'un Enfant Alphonse Daudet 1868

_Celastrus scandens_, "bourreau des arbres" of the Canadian French.

The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Complete Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851