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Beadsman vs Headsman - What's the difference?

beadsman | headsman |

As nouns the difference between beadsman and headsman

is that beadsman is a petitioner; someone who seeks some type of favour from another, usually from a superior while headsman is an executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.

beadsman

English

Alternative forms

* bedesman

Noun

(beadsmen)
  • (lb) A petitioner; someone who seeks some type of favour from another, usually from a superior.
  • A man employed in praying; especially one who prays for another.
  • (historical, England) A poor man, supported in a beadhouse, and required to pray for the soul of its founder; an almsman.
  • * Fuller
  • Whereby ye shall bind me to be your poor beadsman for ever unto Almighty God.
  • A public almsman; one who received alms from the king, and was expecyed in return to pay for the royal welfare and that of the state; a licensed beggar.
  • (Webster 1913)

    headsman

    English

    Noun

    (headsmen)
  • An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.
  • *, I.40:
  • *:And of those base-minded jesters or buffons, some have beene seene, that even at the point of death would never leave their jesting and scoffing. He whom the heads-man threw off from the Gallowes cried out, ‘Row the Gally,’ which was his ordinarie by-word.
  • * 1885 ,
  • And made him Headsman , for we said, / "Who's next to be decapited / Cannot cut off another's head / Until he's cut his own off"