Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The chief man especially of a tribal or traditional village.
- n. A headsman.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A chief; a leader.
Wiktionary
- n. alternative spelling of head man.
- n. informal headmaster
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A head or leading man, especially of a village community.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the head of a tribe or clan
- n. an executioner who beheads the condemned person
Examples
“Now the murder of a native government headman is a serious matter in those parts.”
“And whereas in Taiwan the cabessas were selected by the Chinese community itself, in Batavia the headman was appointed by the company. 23 His job was to act as a representative of the Chinese population in discussions with the Dutch leadership in Batavia, to execute the company's instructions among the Chinese community, and to administer justice among the Chinese.”
“He also made him a present of an oldish horse which he had got; he had heard that the headman was a priest of the sun, and so he could fatten up the beast and sacrifice him; otherwise he was afraid it might die outright, for it had been injured by the long marching.”
“Oh, Sandi!" called the headman of the boat, as she went lumbering over the clear green swell, "remember us, your servants!”
Bones Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country
“The headman is a certain William Pine, whose grandfather,”
“Uncle Cæsar," the trusted "headman" upon the plantation of Colonel Marshall - Mrs. Henry's father - had once partaken of the Lord's Supper in the church in which his master was an elder.”
“In Palmyra, Hairan was dead, and young Odhainat, his brother, was now Septimus Odaenathus -- "headman" of the city and to all appearances the firm friend of Rome.”
“When a "headman" emerges in a hunter-gatherer group, it seems to be that sort of person most of the time.”
“Simultaneously with the construction of works for the advancement of agriculture, the patriarchal village system, copied from that which existed from the earliest ages in India [1], was established in the newly settled districts; and each hamlet, with its governing "headman" its artisans, its barber, its astrologer and washerman, was taught to conduct its own affairs by its village council; to repair its tanks and watercourses, and to collect two harvests in each year by the combined labour of the whole village community.”
“headman," who, hiring all the others, makes contracts with a vessel, which is met outside of the roadsteads or harbors, to supply a certain number of men to manage it during her coasting voyage.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘headman’.
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Man
Everything that contains a man in it
taxman, salesman, common man, spaceman, neolithic man, straw man, seaman, fireman, spiderman, overman, old man, con man and 373 more...
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