henchman

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“
You stand by him?--only to hear it, for I am sure of it We stand or fall together Her glowing look doated on the faithful lieutenant And if the henchman is my hero, I am but a waiting-woman.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun A loyal and trusted follower or subordinate.
  2. noun A person who supports a political figure chiefly out of selfish interests.
  3. noun A member of a criminal gang.
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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Of course it would be the Admiral's loyal henchman, the all-knowing, all-seeing Smythe. —  Teresa Medeiros - Thief of Hearts
  • Once a man made a peace offering, he had as much as admitted he was in the wrong, and therefore she could browbeat him some more if she wished Happy about it, she jumped up, opened the stateroom door, and looked into the scowling face of Karl Sundwi, the Makaroff henchman--the man of whom Makaroff was deathly afraid. —  176 - Terror Wears No Shoes
  • But they run afoul of a limping stranger who rejoices in the name Llewellyn Pierpont Boopfaddle ... and his henchman, the professional wrestler Lord Ivan Big Bulk. —  FSF,August2005
  • I'm just a henchman, a lackey, the ectomorphic Odd Job to my Auric Goldfingers in sales. —  Kotaku
  • Jeanneret signed his paintings with his own name but could not countenance the careerism of his henchman, the architect Corbusier.
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

retainer ·  vassal ·  squire ·  esquire ·  servitors ·  adherent ·  confidant ·  factotum ·  frontiersman ·  sidekick ·  conservators ·  footman

Used in the same contextWord Family

henchman:   henchmen
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English hengsman, henshman, servant to a person of rank : hengest, horse (from Old English) + man, man; see man.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also hencheman, henseman, henxman, hanshman, haunsman (as a surname existing in the forms Henchman, Hensman, Hinchman, Hincksman, Hinxman), from late Middle English hencheman, henshman, hensman, heynceman, henxman, a groom, a page or attendant, prob. contr. from hengest-man, literally ‘horse-man,’ i. e. groom (= German hengstmann = Icelandic hestamadhr, a groom), from Middle English hengest, a horse, recorded but once, namely, as hængest, in Layamon, 3546 (about adjective d. 1200), but prob. surviving much later, or renewed in the compound through Scandinavian influence, from Anglo-Saxon hengest, hengst, a horse, steed (also in compound local names, as Hengestes-brōc, now Hinxbrook, Hengestesgeat, now Hinxgate, Hengestesrigc (for *Hengesteshrycg), now Henstridge), = OFries. hengst = Dutch hengst = Old High German hengist, Middle High German hengest, German hengst, a horse (in Old High German also a gelding) (later Old Danish hengst, Danish Swedish hingst, a horse, stallion: the Scandinavian forms being properly contracted and the sense more general), = Danish hest = Swedish häst = Icelandic hestr, a horse (Gothic (Moesogothic) not recorded), + man. For the sense, cf. Icelandic hestvördhr (literally ‘horseward’), a mounted guard, Swedish hingstridare (literally ‘horse-rider’), a groom of the king's stable who rides before his coach, a forespurrer, a jockey (= Middle High German hengestritter, a rider); so the Old High German forms repr, by Middle Latin hengistfuster, a groom (literally ‘horse-feeder’: see foster), and hengistnotus, a groom (Old High German nōt, need). The usual explanation of henchman as ‘haunchman,’ an invented compound defined as ‘a man who stands at one's haunch,’ is erroneous.
 

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/ˈhɛntʃmən/
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