Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A mankiller; a manslayer; an executioner.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete A killer of men; a manslayer.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete A
killer ofmen ; amanslayer ;executioner . - noun obsolete A
murderer .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Middle English manquellere, from Old English mancwellere ("a manslayer, executioner"), equivalent to man + queller.
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Examples
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So it happened that they found this holy man, and they bound him as though he had been a thief or a manqueller, and brought him before the judge, and with a fell and spiteful mood the judge said to him: Thou rude and unbelieving man, wherefore cost thou with thy devilish works convert all the people from their belief to thy belief, and to thy God?
The Golden Legend, vol. 7 1230-1298 1900
Gammerstang commented on the word manqueller
(noun) - A murderer, a killer of men; from man, and Saxon cwellan, to kill. More anciently it meant an executioner. Dame Quickly in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV adds woman-queller, which shows that she understood the first word: "Thou art a honyseed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller." --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
April 23, 2018