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

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

A Philosophical Dictionary

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

“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

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

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

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

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

Without Dogma

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

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

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

The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Complete