Word.ws English Dictionary

hatchetman

hatchetman is the alternative form of hatchet man.

Meaning of hatchet man

Noun

hatchet man (plural hatchet men)

  1. A male professional killer or gunman.
    • The crime lord dispatched his favorite hatchet man to make sure the witness would not testify.
    Synonyms:
    hitman
  2. (US, historical) A male hatchet-wielding participant in a Chinese-American tong war.
    Synonyms:
    boo how doy
  3. (colloquial, idiomatic) A male who carries out brutal and unpleasant duties on behalf of another, such as firing dead wood employees.
    • After the layoffs, he gained a reputation as a hatchet man and ended up eating lunches alone.

Forms of hatchetman

pluralhatchetmen

Questions about hatchetman

What is hatchetman the alternative form of?
Hatchetman is the alternative form of hatchet man.

Words near hatchetman in the dictionary

  1. hatchetfish
  2. hatchetfishes
  3. hatcheth
  4. hatcheting
  5. hatchetlike
  6. hatchetman
  7. hatchetmen
  8. hatchets
  9. Hatchett
  10. hatchetted
  11. hatchettine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hatchetman (page history and authors); hatchet man (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “hatchetman.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hatchetman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.